G minor · Camelot 6A · 61 BPM
Pinball Wizard
by The Who
- 61
- BPM
- G minor
- Key
- 6A
- Camelot
- 54
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
In late 1968 or early 1969, The Who played a rough assembly of their new album, the rock opera Tommy, for the critic Nik Cohn, and his reaction was lukewarm. Pete Townshend, the band's guitarist and the opera's principal composer, discussed the project with Cohn and decided the story needed lightening. Townshend had recently become deeply interested in the teachings of Meher Baba, and the album carried heavy spiritual overtones. Knowing that Cohn was an avid pinball fan, he suggested that the title character, a deaf, dumb, and blind boy, should also be particularly good at a certain game. Cohn immediately declared Tommy a masterpiece.
"Pinball Wizard" was written and recorded almost immediately after that conversation. The lyrics came from the perspective of a pinball champion, called "Local Lad" in the Tommy libretto, who is astounded by the skills of Tommy Walker: "That deaf dumb and blind kid / Sure plays a mean pinball." Townshend once called it the most clumsy piece of writing he had ever done.
Released as a single in 1969, it reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 19 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The B-side was an instrumental credited to Keith Moon titled "Dogs Part Two", which had no musical connection to the band's 1968 single "Dogs". The band debuted the song live on 2 May 1969 and played it at almost every concert afterwards, occasionally extending it with a jam that could lead into another song.
Pinball Wizard runs at 61 BPM, the tempo of slow ballads, ambient and downtempo. In classical terms it sits in largo territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3.93 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 984 ms. It is in G minor, Camelot 6A, which shares its notes with Bb major and mixes cleanly with C minor and D minor.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.