Pinball Wizard
Song by Pete TownshendWikipedia
36
MENTIONS
14
EPISODES
13
PODCASTS
Search complete. 36 mentions across 14 episodes found for "Pinball Wizard".
Sep 18, 2026
Elvis MitchellHOST
Again, so many of these songs, even some of the Ramones songs, are the stories.
Elvis MitchellHOST
And that's the thing that sort of was the thing that I think brought so many people in, the sort of beginning of creating like a concept album with an extended story Hearing Elton John sing, do his take from Tommy on Pinball Wizard.
Elvis MitchellHOST
That's a story.
Elvis MitchellHOST
That's a song cycle.
Claude ColeHOST
You might remember David Essex from that trippy song Rock On from 1973.
Claude ColeHOST
Essex played Tommy in the 1973 stage production and had recorded his own demo of Pinball Wizard in his home studio.
Claude ColeHOST
But Robert Stigwood, the film's producer, convinced Elton John by telling him that if he played the part, he would be able to keep those ridiculous shoes that he wears in the film.
Claude ColeHOST
Now about those shoes.
Claude ColeHOST
Elton auctioned off the shoes in 1988, along with a bunch of other memorabilia, where they were purchased by a boot and shoemaker for a little over $20,000.
Claude ColeHOST
They now reside in the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in England.
Claude ColeHOST
The song Pinball Wizard, for what it's worth, was not released as a single in the United States, so it never charted on the Billboard Hot 100, but it did reach No. 9 on the Radio and Records Survey based entirely on airplay.
Claude ColeHOST
and that cousin is a full lid on yet another edition of how good it is if you're enjoying the show please leave a rating somewhere or better yet share it with a friend chat it up in your social medias and speaking of which you can find us on the socials as how good it is pod that would be your twixter your insta your blue sky and we're always lurking about at facebook.com slash out howgooditispod.
Curtis TuckerHOST
Unopened.
Curtis TuckerHOST
unopened, crazy, okay, last one of this set, and then I'll stop, and then we'll do the rest of the vinyl albums on Retro Buzz, this is the last one, you guys should recognize this, Elton John's Greatest Hits, if you don't, oh my gosh, dudes, okay, this one's still in the wrapper, unopened, 1974, Bitches Back, Your Song, Daniel, Honky Kat, Yellow Brick Road, Saturday Night's Alright for Fightin', Rocket Man, Benny and the Jets, Don't Let the Sun Go Down, Border Song, Crocodile Rock, Leave On, Pinball Wizard, Philadelphia Freedom, Don't Go Breaking My Heart.
Curtis TuckerHOST
You don't have this album.
Curtis TuckerHOST
Get this album.
JustinHOST
I would say they're in my top three.
JustinHOST
three favorite bands to rival at least personally for me the Beatles and the Doors and the Who those are kind of my three favorite bands their sound is an interesting sound because it's kind of got that explosive mod era rock hard rock sound they're really hard to explain because they've got a lot of different things but then you've got Pete Towns and later on pushing them into concept albums like Tommy and Quadrophenia which are amazing albums in their own but They've got a ton of songs, and I'm sure most people know My Generation, I Can See for Miles, Pinball Wizard, Baba O'Reilly, Behind Blue Eyes, Won't Get Fooled Again, Who Are You, on and on and on.
JustinHOST
They're huge.
JustinHOST
The Who's sold almost 110 million albums worldwide.
Aaron FeigerGUEST
experience working with you know some of these big guys like to furkey or madre good culture etc as we can really help these brands punch punch above their weight that's right and you know that's that's exactly what we did with with pinball cider too coming out of the gate
PeterHOST
perfecto perfecto i also want to say that i'm extremely proud of everyone that tuned in today um and everybody that well they won't get a chance to but of for the three of us also there was not a single pin pinball wizard That's true.
PeterHOST
And I'm so proud of that.
PeterHOST
Thank you.
Mick SmithHOST
Santana performed their breakthrough performance of Soul Sacrifice.
Mick SmithHOST
The Who delivered Pinball Wizard and Crosby's Tales of Nash in one of their earliest performances together.
Mick SmithHOST
What made Wadle and his team did brilliantly was use split-screen techniques to show multiple perspectives simultaneously.
Mick SmithHOST
You'd see the performer, the crowd's reaction, and perhaps a close-up of an instrument all at once.
Tom ComptonHOST
It was just this dystopian future.
Tom ComptonHOST
I mean, dude, they did Pinball Wizard.
Tom ComptonHOST
I mean,
Theo KandelGUEST
for the Tommy shit, it's a whole rock opera around this, and I think that's so cool.
Dean LeggeroHOST
Watch his role in Tommy with those boots.
Dean LeggeroHOST
Or pinball wizard.
Eric KuberHOST
that movie.
Dean LeggeroHOST
Good
Eric KuberHOST
lord, that movie.
Dean LeggeroHOST
I like his version of Pinball Wizard.
Dean LeggeroHOST
I do too.
Dean LeggeroHOST
I think I said it in the past.
DonaldHOST
His mother is caught in flagrante.
DonaldHOST
with somebody else and the father is murdered and Tommy then suffers some sort of psychosomatic shock from that and is rendered deaf, dumb and blind and from that we get to see a little bit of his story as he develops into the pinball wizard and is then exploited by the stepfather and the mother but also we have various different other element to the story as well where he encounters like the acid queen and things like that and then he's seen as some sort of new messiah and then he is rejected finally by his followers and then there's an ambiguous ending where i think he's standing on the hill and they've got the sunrise his uh his parents his stepfather and the mother have been killed by his followers And it's all done by music.
DonaldHOST
It is, oh, completely over the top.
DonaldHOST
It is completely different to the sort of social realist tradition of British filmmaking.
DonaldHOST
the vinyl I can't say I've listened to it in the last 10 years, but then there's a lot of records I haven't listened to in my vinyl collection that I've listened to in the last 10 years.
WesHOST
Outside of maybe the Marilyn Monroe track, I didn't particularly enjoy any of the songs whatsoever.
WesHOST
I was dismayed to find that Pinball Wizard featured halfway through, knowing that I had another 15 minutes afterwards to follow the first 15 minutes coming into Pinball Wizard.
WesHOST
I like Pinball Wizard.
speaker_2UNKNOWN
That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball.
speaker_2UNKNOWN
Show plays a mean pinball The Pinball Wizard, it has to be a twist The Pinball Wizard's got such a subtle wrist How do you think he does it? I don't know What makes him so good? Ain't got no distractions, can't hear no buzzers and bells.
speaker_2UNKNOWN
Don't see no lights a-flashing, plays my sense of smell.
speaker_2UNKNOWN
Always gets a replay, never seen him fall.
speaker_6UNKNOWN
That dead, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a mean
speaker_2UNKNOWN
pinball.
Gary JacksonHOST
The Who and Pinball Wizard from Tommy, of course, in 1969.
Gary JacksonHOST
This is a bit later than 1969.
4 more episodes mention Pinball Wizard.
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