The Who Flop That the Band Wished Pete Townshend Would’ve Just Given To Small Faces Instead

Killing your darlings is tough for any artist. These creative ideas and musings are often highly sentimental, which can make letting go of something that’s not working a difficult task. When you’re an internationally famous rock ‘n’ roll band like The Who, this hurdle is made doubly challenging by the fact that the charts will tell you—for better or worse—whether saving that darling was a mistake.

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And for The Who in June 1968, they got their answer after “Dogs” marked the lowest point in the band’s career since breaking through with genre-defining tracks like “My Generation” and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere”.

Pete Townshend Wasn’t Interested in Shopping His Song Around

If there were any questions about what the rest of The Who thought about Pete Townshend’s composition, “Dogs”, vocalist Roger Daltrey makes it plainly clear in a 2002 conversation with Uncut. “‘Dogs?’ Oh… [buries face in hands] S***! That’s just bizarre. Actually, I’ll tell you what it is.”

“It’s just Pete’s tribute to Ronnie Lane,” Daltrey continued. Lane was the bassist and co-founder of Small Faces, an English rock group known for hits like “Itchycoo Park” and “Lazy Sunday”. The latter track, specifically, shared many sonic similarities with The Who’s “Dog”, which backs up Daltrey’s argument that Townshend was emulating Small Faces when he wrote his song.

“I think it’d have been better if Pete had just given the song to Ronnie in the first place,” Daltrey said. “As a Who record, it was all a bit frivolous to me.”

The Rest of the World Seemed to Agree About the Who’s “Dogs”

Pete Townshend argued that the only reason he pushed for the release of “Dogs” was that the BBC would deem it “fit for human consumption” and give it more radio airplay. But “appropriate” doesn’t always translate to “popular,” and the single ended up peaking at No. 25 in their native United Kingdom. This was the lowest chart position The Who had held since starting their reign as one of the biggest rock bands of the decade. Like many other zany tracks from otherwise steadily successful bands, “Dogs” later gained retrospective acclaim.

Still, perhaps Townshend would have been wise to listen to his bandmates and just give his Small Faces-esque song to Small Faces. Their similar track, “Lazy Sunday”, had performed remarkably better, breaking into the Top 5 around the world. And that’s no slight to Small Faces from The Who, either.

“He was a lovely geezer, Ronnie,” Daltrey told Uncut. “They were great guys, The Faces. All of them.”

Photo by Mark Hayward Archive/Redferns