Pete Townshend Confirms The Unreleased Who Song Featuring Keith Moon

The Who’s Pete Townshend joined a new interview with Mojo Magazine in which he revealed that the record company found an unreleased track called ‘Ambition’ featuring him, Keith Moon, and John Entwistle.

After releasing their fourth studio album, ‘Tommy,’ the Who started working on a project called ‘Lifehouse.’ It was designed as a science-fiction rock opera but left unfinished because the band focused on their ‘Who’s Next’ album. The songs within the project still appeared on the various Who albums and in Townshend’s solo albums later on.

It looks like Pete Townshend is determined to revive the ‘Lifehouse’ project again, as he revealed in his recent Instagram posts. Townshend has also been working on a ‘Lifehouse’ graphic novel in partnership with Heavy Metal magazine. It is planned to be published in 2022. Townshend also hinted that there could be a documentary about the project as well.

During the interview, Townshend revealed that the record company told him they had found a track named ‘Ambition’ featuring Keith Moon from the ‘Lifehouse’ sessions. Later on, he also found a demo he had completed at home. Pete Townshend recalled spending a week finishing the demo and then sending it to the record company. However, they didn’t want to include it in the album, so it remained unreleased.

Pete Townshend speaking on the unreleased Who song:

“I actually don’t have any. I mean, 2021 would have been the 50th anniversary of the ‘Who’s Next’ album and a good opportunity to do a box set and to have conversations about it. But we missed it for obvious reasons. And so in 2022, there is a box set, and the box set is to some extent being perfumed by the fact that I’ve been working with a guy called Jeff Krelitz on a ‘Lifehouse’ graphic novel, and we’re hoping that that will come out around the same time.

There’s talk of a documentary, all of this stuff. It makes me want to run away! The record company had found a track they said was from the ‘Lifehouse’ sessions. This track, called ‘Ambition,’ had Keith Moon, John Entwistle, and me playing on it. And then, I found a demo that I had done at home with a vocal.

So they were like, ‘Well, let’s just get Roger to do a vocal on the version that the other guys in the band did, and we can add it to the record, and it will be brand new.’ So I spent a week reconstituting or finishing off the demo, sent it to the record company, and they said, ‘Ah, no … maybe you could put it on a solo album?’ So I said, ‘Well, you know, there’s a reason it’s never been released before. It’s because it’s crap!'”

Below, you can listen to the songs which were intended to be released in the ‘Lifehouse’ album.