• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About
  • Archives
  • Contact

Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

Certain Songs #1529: Pete Townshend – “Slit Skirts”

May 5, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes
Year: 1982

Of course, the real reason I played All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes as many times as I did was so I could get to “Slit Skirts,” which wasn’t just my favorite song on the album, but probably my favorite of all of his solo songs.

And while just like many of the songs on All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, “Slit Skirts” had too damn many words, somehow his meditation on growing older resonated with me, who was pushing the ripe old age of 20. Of course, while I couldn’t relate to the actual experiences he was describing, the overall theme of coping with the changes that growing older inevitably caused was something I could relate to: not only was KSFR was finally going on the air, I was also working towards the first real adult romantic relationship in my life. Terrifying.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1529: Pete Townshend – “Slit Skirts”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, Pete Townshend, Slit Skirts

Certain Songs #1528: Pete Townshend – “Stardom in Acton”

May 4, 2019 by Jim Connelly

Album: All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes
Year: 1982

To call Pete Townshend’s 1982 album All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, difficult is to undersell the concept of difficult. It laughed at difficult. It stuck a secret knife in difficult’s gut. For the longest time, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of most of it. Songs like “Face Dances Pt 2,” “Uniforms” and “Exquisitely Bored” tried to be exquisite, but ended up being boring. And it still amazes me today how he could cover “Girl From The North Country” and completely ignore one the most gorgeous melodies in human history.

That said, I thought “The Sea Refuses No River,” “Somebody Saved Me” and even the dread “Stop Hurting People” (OK, if you say so, Pete) were good songs that were overthought, overlong — or both — but somehow got across because of his singing, which I’d come to love even more than Roger Daltrey’s. I mean, the dread “Stop Hurting People” is just plaine silly for the longest time, but god help me, when he sings “may I be matched with you again?” and his guitar shines like the sun out of a cloudbank of synths, it gets me every time.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1528: Pete Townshend – “Stardom in Acton”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, Pete Townshend, Stardom in Acton

Primary Sidebar

Lopy

Search

Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2049: The Rolling Stones – “Gimme Shelter”
  • Certain Songs #2048: The Rolling Stones – “Honky Tonk Women”
  • Certain Songs #2047: The Rolling Stones – “No Expectations (Rock and Roll Circus 12-1968)”
  • Certain Songs #2046: The Rolling Stones – “Blood Red Wine”
  • Certain Songs #2045: The Rolling Stones – “Salt of The Earth”

Copyright © 2021 ยท Medialoper