There had been times when the Who wasn’t particularly in luck since their history has been filled with numerous tragedies. You see, when the band was to perform in Cincinnati in the late ’70s, fans were afraid that they wouldn’t get enough of the band, so when the doors were opened, the crowd filled the venue rather quickly. However, sadly, this resulted in the trampling and death of eleven people.
To make matters worse, this tragedy came only relatively a short while after Keith Moon’s death, right when the band was trying to move on, step up and perform without the drummer. However, after the musician’s death, bad luck followed the band well into the concert tragedy, and it felt to Roger Daltrey that his late friend’s unfortunate end might have been connected to a song.
You see, the song in question had a weird feeling, and Roger had sworn off not to play it ever again because it felt like a tragedy would happen whenever they were to perform the song. So, when Howard Stern asked Roger in 2015 if there was any song in the Who’s discography that only reminded him of bad memories, the singer had a quick answer.
“There is one… There is one, and I won’t ever play again,” said Daltrey before he detailed why he wouldn’t ever play the track. “There’s a song on the ‘Who Are You’ album, it’s called, ‘Music Must Change.’ Every time we played that in the studio, Keith couldn’t play the drums to it. It was kind of in a three-four, and he just, Keith, couldn’t play normal drums.”
He revealed how Moon couldn’t play his part, so he wasn’t in the recording. Roger noted, “Keith could play great moon drums, and that was it. He just couldn’t do that [his parts]. So, we have to do it with a pair of squeaky boots walking on the pavement. He’s kind of squeaking, walking, doing the rhythm. So, Keith is not on that recording, on the record, [and] straight after we made that record, he died.”
When Howard Stern asked if Keith’s death were the only reason Roger wouldn’t play the song, the singer disclosed that there was another tragedy. He explained, “Well, it goes on. We played the song when we got back together with Kenney Jones as a drummer, and we played that for a little while on stage, and then we dropped it for a long, long, long time.”
The rocker continued, “We brought it back in 2002 when we toured, the last tour with John Entwistle. We rehearsed it, and we were gonna do it in the show, and John died. I kind of got a weird feeling about it because it is about how it’s got to move on, and that is our time to move on, really.”
So, it felt to Roger Daltrey that the song had a weird feeling, and it wasn’t just a coincidence that he had lost two bandmates right after they had rehearsed the song. Of course, it might be a coincidence that all of those happened when they were recording and rehearsing the song; however, it looks like Daltrey is determined not to sing it ever again, as he believes it is ill-fated.
