Musical Interlude: Pinball Wizard (1975)

The Who composed the rock opera, "Tommy", in 1968, and recorded it a year later.

In 1975, "Tommy" was adapted into a feature film, with Roger Daltrey in the lead, a "deaf, dumb, & blind" fellow who has been in that particular state due to a severe emotional trauma. To that end, the climatic "Pinball Wizard" is sung by Elton John, who simultaneously, in character as the Pinball Wizard", duels with Tommy (Daltrey), all the while wearing some ginormous boots (and hidden stilts), a sequence re-enacted in the recent bio, "Rocketman".

This was the first time I've seen any part of the movie.



The custom novelty specs we expect from Elton. The boots? A different story. If the vocals seem a little out of sync with the video, it's because the YouTube poster used remastered, high quality audio.