Okay, we did The Who’s Tattoo last week. Now it’s time for Odorono, which is one of our favourite songs from the band. But one of the most obscure.
It’s the track before Tattoo on the band’s 1967 album The Who Sell Out.
After Tommy (1968), pretty much all Sell Out songs were obliterated after the album’s general lack of success. But we love the thing and want to note, denote, or whatever else, some of its classic tracks.
Odorono and the General Stench of Humans
Recorded on 11th October 1967, here we have a bittersweet number. It’s about a female singer who auditions for a performance.
She thinks it goes really well but a handsome creative director, sadly, informs her it wasn’t quite enough to get her the role.
Really, this is an amazing song. The opening lyrics from Pete Townshend:
She sang the best she’d ever sang,
She couldn’t ever sing any better,
But Mister Davidson never rang,
She knew he would forget her,She’d seen him there,
And put herself to ransom,
He had stared,
He really was quite handsome,She had really looked her best,
She couldn’t ever look any better,
But she knew she’d failed the test,
She knew he would forget her.
In 1967, Townshend was about 22. This is advanced stuff, already hitting genius level with his songwriting.
No, this wasn’t stadium filling numbers like My Generation and Substitute, but it shows some seriously advanced concepts for someone so young.
Triumphant was the way she felt,
As she acknowledged the applause.Triumphant was the way she’d felt,
When she saw him at the dressing room door.She was happier than she’d ever been,
As he praised her for her grace,
But his expression changed, she had seen,
As he leant to kiss her face.It ended there,
He claimed a late appointment,
She quickly turned,
To hide her disappointment.She ripped her glittering gown,
Couldn’t face another show, no,
Her deodorant had let her down,
She should have used Odorono.
This is conjecture on our side, but this song may reflect Townshend’s early time with The Who.
At one point, studio executives wanted to kick him out of the band as he had a big nose and didn’t fit the conventional good looking rock star stereotype (such as with Jim Morrison of The Doors).
Townshend has gone on record and stated he struggled with his appearance as a young man and thought he wasn’t good looking.
It’s the same for a lot of people these days who don’t have a conventional appearance about them. We see it all the time with validation seeking social media posts—selfies and the pursuit of adoration.
Townshend said in 1995, for the sleeve notes with the deluxe CD release we bought in 2001, he was appalled by having to do topless pictures for the Sell Out album cover.
But reflecting on it in 1995, he wished he’d cared less given how slim he was.
Which we think is what a considerable amount of people push themselves through, regarding personal appearance (some important lessons to be learned there).
As with so many selfies online, on the Sell Out cover Townshend’s smug expression was masking personal insecurities. Meanwhile, Roger Daltrey just got pneumonia from sitting in the bath of cold beans.
He’d drawn the short straw for the baked beans bath (bad luck, sir).
Things weren’t great for him at the time, either. In 1967, Daltrey was struggling. Townshend was frustrated with the lead singer and felt his Angry Mod frontman approach was restricting the band.
There was a serious threat he’d be booted out, but Daltrey pulled his act together magnificently and rose to the occasion (see The Who at Woodstock for proof). However, the issues were highlighted by Townshend taking lead singing duties on much of Sell Out’s tracks.
Odorono being an example.
Townshend’s voice has a more vulnerable quality than Daltrey’s, which lends itself well to certain songs. You can hear a slightly longer take of Odorono here, which has an extra verse of selling out at the end.
In 2021, we’re happy to report The Guardian agreed with us in The Who Sell Out: still a searing satire on pop’s commercial breakdown. Alexis Petridis wrote:
“Faced with a deadline for The Who’s forthcoming album, [Townshend] proposed that it should include both songs that contained what would now be called product placement – as in the case of Odorono, a saga of thwarted dreams that hinged on a brand of deodorant – and actual adverts …
The kind of lyrical product placement that Odorono imagined is now commonplace, particularly in hip-hop. Videos can be transformed into exercises in branding – Justin Bieber’s video for What Do You Mean? heavily featured Calvin Klein underwear.”
As a catchy little pop song, Odorono is brilliant. Telling a tale of failure in a few short minutes, with catchy guitar playing and memorable lyrics.
There are so many incredible little intricacies crammed into it (for some reason, that reminds us of the subtle complexities of The Stone Roses’ Sugar Spun Sister). After 20 years of listening to it, we’re still picking up on little details.
For this album, drummer Keith Moon was determined to show critics there was more to him than total lunacy. He was outstanding on this album and you can hear his clever playing style at play across Odorono. Quite brilliant.
The notion some of his naysayers hold, that he only had one style of playing and was only suitable for The Who, rubbished in this one song.
And we think it’s a brilliant little number. Odorono has been a favourite of ours for a long time. We vividly remember playing it on repeat in summer 2006 as our third year of university drew to a close.
1967… 2006. Close enough. That’s the genius of Townshend’s songwriting skills right there, to transcend generations.
Helpfully, the song also reminded us to keep using deodorant.
There Are No Live Performances of Odorono
The Who were one of the top bands of the ’60s and 1970s and remain massively documented to this day. But the band’s one anomaly is The Who Sell Out.
Other than I Can See For Miles (in one clip above) and Tattoo, nothing else from Sell Out features anywhere in the band’s live set.
We remember in 2008 researching this and finding some bootleg copies of live Sell Out performances prior to The Who’s Tommy (1968) breakthrough.
Despite our best efforts trying to find something, there are no live performances from The Who of Odorono. What did we find instead?
This from 2015! Bloody kids these days. Don’t know they’re born!
SNOWFLAKE, WO… oh, sorry. How great is that? 10/10 for effort. It’s a shame they’re destroying our generation, these creative, precocious young ones.
This does annoy us, though, as there’s no Sell Out stuff from the band itself.
The best we could find was the footage below from April 1967, when Sell Out would have been in the works. Yet the band stick to their trademark singles here. Although there’s some nifty footage of them in their singles heyday.
Oh well, the band made Tommy a priority and why not? It was a smash hit and launched them to superstardom.
But we do think Sell Out marked the end of a period where Townshend was relying on his humour and wit to write some songs, as this dropped out almost entirely from The Who’s future work.
A bit of a shame. But at the same time, it’s fantastic to listen to Odorono now to hear a special talent at work. And to get some bloody deodorant on.
