The Who - After the Fire - Non-Album Tracks (1982-1991)

I've been posting at this blog for over four years now. There are so many artists that I've been dealing with that sometimes I lose track. That's the case with the Who. I posted some stray tracks albums from them way back, but I lost track before I finished. I have this album plus one more to get things more or less to the current day.

The Who put out the album "It's Hard" in 1982 and then broke up. Well, kind of. They didn't stay broken up for long. They reunited for the famous Live Aid benefit concert in 1985, and then went on a big tour in 1989. Since 1982, unfortunately, they've become more of a nostalgia act, continuing to make lots of money with touring, but only putting out two new albums and a few other songs here and there. Their main songwriter Pete Townshend has favored his solo career when it comes to putting out his new songs. 

For this album, I'm generally avoiding Townshend's solo material and focusing on what little there is done by the Who, as well as the occasional solo song by lead vocalist Roger Daltrey. Personally, I'm far less interested in Daltrey's solo material than Townshend's. I just don't think he's done that many songs that stand up to the quality of The Who, in large part because he's usually chosen songs that don't rock like Who songs do. So when there is the occasional excellent solo song from him from this time period, I've included it here.

All but two of the songs here are officially released, although the first two only came out on DVD, if that counts. Those two, "Twist and Shout" and "I Saw Her Standing There," are covers the Who did on their 1982 tour. The next two come from a 1985 Daltrey solo album. "After the Fire" has more of a Who connection because it was written by Townshend. Apparently, the Who planned to perform it at Live Aid that year, but they couldn't rehearse it enough to do it justice in time.

In 1989, Townshend put out a solo album called "The Iron Man." He utilized some lead vocalists on some of the songs other than himself. For two of the songs, "Dig" and "Fire," Daltrey sang lead, and bassist John Entwistle played too, so those were rightly billed as Who songs. Thus their inclusion here, despite appearing on a Townshend solo album. The two songs after that, "Born on the Bayou" and "Hey Joe," are covers of classics done by the Who on their 1989 tour. These are the only two unreleased songs, but they come from an excellent sounding soundboard bootleg.

In 1991, the Who briefly got back together again to record a cover of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" for an Elton John tribute album.

This is a motley collection of songs from a nine-year time span. The Who just didn't do many new songs during this time period. But I think it's nice to have them collected together just the same.

This album is 47 minutes long.

UPDATE: On July 1, 2022, I update the mp3 download file. I added two songs that were released in 2021 as bonus tracks of the band's 1982 "It's Hard." The songs are "Eminence Front" and "One's Life Enough." Instrumentally, both versions are exactly the same as the album versions. However, on that album "Eminence Front" was sung by Townshend and here it's sung by Daltrey. Whereas "One Life's Enough" was sung by Daltrey, and here it's sung by Townshend.

Adding those two songs made this album rather long, and the next album in this stray tracks series was rather short. So I moved the last song that had been here, "The Sea Refuses No River," to the start of the next album.

01 Eminence Front [Roger Daltrey Vocals Version] (Who)
02 One Life's Enough [Pete Townshend Vocals Version] (Who)
03 Twist and Shout (Who)
04 I Saw Her Standing There (Who)
05 After the Fire (Roger Daltrey)
06 Under a Raging Moon (Roger Daltrey)
07 Fire (Who)
08 Dig (Who)
09 Born on the Bayou (Who)
10 Hey Joe (Who)
11 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Who)

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The cover uses a publicity photo of the band in 1982.