# In 1969, Pete Townshend wrote an “awful” song as a joke, unaware it would be The Who’s best-selling single ever

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/in-1969-pete-townshend-wrote-an-awful-song-as-a-joke-unaware-it-would-be-the-whos-best-selling-single-ever/
- Published: 2026-10-29T13:23:23+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-04T04:58:45+00:00
- Original publisher: Far Out
- Original article: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/1969-pete-townshend-wrote-an-awful-song-as-a-joke-unaware-it-would-be-the-whos-best-selling-single/
- Topics: Entertainment, Music

## Key points

- Townshend thought “Pinball Wizard” was awful.
- The song sold 1.2 million copies worldwide.
- It became The Who’s best-selling single.

## Summary

In 1969, Pete Townshend wrote “Pinball Wizard” for The Who’s rock opera *Tommy*, initially dismissing it as an awful, clumsy song. The track gave the album a memorable hit and helped draw attention to the story, in which Tommy discovers he is a gifted pinball player.

Townshend said critic and pinball enthusiast Nik Cohn’s reaction to the project helped prompt the pinball element, though Townshend’s accounts of how it came about have varied. After engineer Damon Lyon-Shaw and others predicted the song would be a hit, Townshend released it despite his doubts. It sold 1.2 million copies worldwide and became The Who’s best-selling single.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.