Watch the Who Debut Another New Song, ‘Big Cigars’
The Who debuted another new song, “Big Cigars,” and announced that its parent album will be released in November.
It’s the second new track that’s been performed on their Moving On! orchestral tour, following the arrival of “Hero Ground Zero” earlier this year. That song received its second airing during the Sept. 1 show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
You can watch the new songs below.
Before delivering “Big Cigars,” guitarist Pete Townshend said, “Next year, hopefully, the songs that we release in November will be greatest hits. ... Or maybe they won’t. Listen, you can sit or stand, you can dance, you can go to sleep – I don’t give a fuck. You’ve bought your ticket. It’s done. It’s a done deal! ... I seriously wish we were sharper tonight. I know we’re not on top form. But you know, you have given us so much love. We appreciate it!”
Ahead of playing “Hero Ground Zero,” the guitarist noted that the band’s new “bunch of recordings” will be released “around the middle of November” and the LP will contain “about 11 songs, 12 songs.”
Earlier this year, singer Roger Daltrey told how he had upset Townshend with his reaction to the album demos. “There were four, maybe five, of them which I really didn’t like,” he recalled. “I thought it was a great Pete Townshend solo album. I told him that. And he got quite angry! He said, ‘I wrote them for you!’ I said, ‘Pete, I don’t know how I can improve it.’ I couldn’t see myself climbing in.”
He added that he "slowly but surely climbed into it. I don’t think anyone’s ever understood, including Pete, that doing what I do with his songs is certainly not fucking easy. You have to live them. Do I have to change the songs till I can mean them? Yes. It has to come from my heart. It can’t come from my head. When it comes from my heart, I will touch you with those words. Sometimes, I have to change the words to make that possible.”