It might be safe to say that the relationship between songs and artists is like that of a child and a parent. After all, while some parents might adore their children in every way, others might distance themselves a bit more and have a challenging time bonding. I mean, I don’t mean to resurface anyone’s childhood traumas, but sometimes things can be tough.
So, the relations between pieces of music and their creators are fairly similar since while some artists might thrive performing one particular song, others could have a feud with different pieces from their discography. Imagine Dragons’ Dan Reynolds, for instance, once admitted to ghostwriting a hit, but when it came to addressing the song, he wasn’t really eager to do so.
The singer discussed how the hit track didn’t mean much to him while disclosing he viewed his songs like his children, and he certainly wouldn’t have given away a track that was dear to him. This surely would’ve hurt that song’s feelings if it had some, but it was how Dan felt.
And this brings us to today’s article, as we’ll further explore another complex relationship between a track and its creator while discussing why the artist couldn’t stand it. From what the title makes clear, today’s honorary is Roger Daltrey, and it might be safe to say that he really, really despised one certain the Who track and dismissed it as the black sheep of their catalog.
Daltrey made the harsh revelation while chatting with Uncut in 2015 and listing his favorite songs with his band. So, it was a brutal twist when, among all the tracks the rocker adored, he started discussing how much he couldn’t stand singing 1971’s ‘The Seeker,’ a now-forgotten piece from the band’s discography.
The frontman apparently had made it his mission to avoid performing the song at all costs since it felt pretentious to take the stage while singing it in front of crowded audiences. So, he decided to toss ‘The Seeker’ aside and did his best not to let it resurface in their setlists, and it had been so long since Daltrey performed the track that he had forgotten all about it.
Roger’s words on the Who song he couldn’t stand:
“[I] was never ever fond of ‘The Seeker.’ To sing that song, to me, was like trying to push an elephant up the stairs. I found it cumbersome, the first song we’d ever done where I thought, ‘Nah, this is pretentious.’ I haven’t heard it for so long that, to be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what it sounds like.”
From what one can easily see, Daltrey really, really despised the song and felt it was challenging for him to bond with it. So, he decided to abandon it in favor of the other Who songs, trying his best to let it fade away in the long-forgotten archives in music history. It seems pretty clear that Roger regretted making that song and tried to distance himself from it as much as possible. Well, what can we say? Parents can be complicated.
