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"Pinball Wizard" is a song by the English rock band the Who, written by guitarist and primary songwriter Pete Townshend and featured on their 1969 rock opera album Tommy. The original recording was released as a single in 1969 and reached No. 4 in the UK charts and No. 19 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 .
The song "Pinball Wizard", performed by Elton John, was a major hit when released as a single. [1] Although the music for this song is performed by "The Elton John Band", as he was calling his musical team, the film depicts John being backed by The Who (dressed in pound-note suits).
The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard is a pinball machine based on the rock musical The Who's Tommy, based upon the band's 1969 rock opera album of the same name, which was also adapted into a 1975 motion picture. The machine features twenty-one songs from the musical sung by original Broadway cast members.
None of these three people were ever meant to be stars, and there they were, with a No. 1 record on “Top of the Pops,” and “Pinball Wizard” was No. 4 (laughs).
Released in March 1973, the album coincided with the release of their latest hit single "Pinball Wizard/See Me Feel Me", which reached #16 on the UK charts. [1]This single was a medley of two songs taken from the Who's rock opera Tommy and employed a harder-edged sound for the group, with heavy use of electric guitars and vocals more in line with a typical rock style.
Billboard described the single as an "easy beat rocker" with "much sales potency" that represented a "change of pace" from the Who's previous single "Pinball Wizard." [9] Cash Box said that "the Who come on strongly" and that the song has a "striking out-of-context lyric which should spark immediate activity." [10]
The song was not recorded by the Who at the time it was written, but the band's management and music publisher circulated a Townshend demo recording of the song in 1966. A version was released as a single in the UK in April 1967 by an obscure band called the Pudding, in the UK on Decca and in the US on London's Press label. [5] [6] It was not a ...
That year, he bought his first pinball machine — a 1970s-era Bally "Bow and Arrow" for $500. He then bought one based on "The Addams Family," the best-selling pinball machine of all time. And ...