Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy was an album by The Who, released in November of 1971. It peaked at #11 in the charts.

This album was not the first compilation of Who hits, 1968's Direct Hits being the first, followed by 1967's The Story of The Who, The Singles, released in 1984, 1985's The Who Collection, 1988's Who's Better Who's Best, the 1994 box set 30 Years Of Maximum R&B,1996's My Generation - The Very Best Of The Who, and the most recent, 2002's The Who: Ultimate Collection.

Some US-Only releases include 1968's Magic Bus - The Who On Tour, 1981's Hooligans, 1983's The Who's Greatest Hits and 1999's The Who: 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection

It is, along with My Generation - The Very Best of the Who, the collection that has been most-renowned by rock critics and fans as the definitive "compilation" album.


1. I Can't Explain- The Who's first takeoff single, this song was a garage-band sounding song. The riff was similar to some of the Kinks', but the sound is The Who's. All the mod kids liked it, even though it had as much to do with mod "as a cat's arse" (Q Magazine).
2. The Kids Are Alright - an early (first performed in 1964) Who release, The Kids Are Alright appeared on 1965's The Who Sings My Generation. It was released as a single in 1966.
3. Happy Jack- , it was featured on the 1966 album A Quick One (called Happy Jack in the USA), and reached #3 on the UK charts, and #13 in the USA.
4. I Can See For Miles This single was released in 1967, it was on the album The Who Sell Out. It did fairly well, reaching #10 in the UK and #9 in the USA.
5. Pictures Of Lily - This was first released on 1966's Magic Bus, another compilation album. This song is...well..."all about wanking", as John Entwistle himself described it. The song describes a young boy's "problem", and his dad helps him solve it by hanging pictures up on his wall of a beautiful woman However, he falls in love with her, and discovers she's dead.
Pete:
"Merely a ditty about masturbation and the importance of it to a young man. I was really diggin' at my folks who, when catching me at it, would talk in loud voices in the corridor outside my room. 'Why can't he go with girls like other boys?'"
6. My Generation Ok, this song did have something to do with mods. This 1965 song appeared on the album of the same name. The subculture of the mods embraced this song, even though it sort of made fun of them-the stuttering ("people try to put us d-d-down"), prodded at mods on too much speed.
7. The Seeker - a single released in 1970 between the Tommy and Live at Leeds albums, this song is quite popular at live shows-both times I've seen them, they've played it. (update: I have now seen them 7 times...and they only played it the first two..oh well)And also, Roger looked at me during this song. So hah. But that's probably because I was screaming way loud. BUT STILL, this is besides the point. "The Seeker" brought back the theme of seeking something higher, as would the next two projects The Who would carry out, Who's Next and Quadrophenia.
8. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere - the first song Roger Daltrey ever wrote on (Pete shared the other credit), it was written in about 1965, but not released anywhere (except France...) until this album.
9. Pinball Wizard - part of the 1969 release Tommy, this song was one of the most popular from the album. Yeah, everyone knows: it's about a deaf, dumb, and blind kid named Tommy who saves everyone by playing pinball. It reached #4 in the UK and #19, and was also a hit for Elton John in 1976.
10. A Legal Matter- recorded in 1965, this was the B-side to 1966's The Kids Are Alright. However, it was later released as an A-side. This song was written by Pete about Roger's divorce from his first wife (which is probably why Pete sang it, to avoid a...uh..legal matter.).
11. Boris The Spider- A John Entwistle compositon, it's sort of...industrial. Yeah, industrial. Like most Entwistle songs, it's witty and deceitful. First appearing on A Quick One (Happy Jack), Entwistle said he wrote it after a night of drinking with Bill Wyman whilst talking about funny names for animals.
12. The Magic Bus- This song was a single released by The Who in 1967, it appeared the previous year (1970) on Live at Leeds, but this was the first studio version on an album.
13. Substitute - a song written by Pete about The Rolling Stones (supposedly as a spoof of "Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown"), it was a single released in March of 1966, it reached #5 in the UK, but flopped in the USA.
14. I'm A Boy - part of an aborted Pete Townshend musical named Quads, this song was conceived as really strange at the time. The idea of it was that, in the future, people could control the sex of their babies-yet this one went wrong, and the parents made him act like a her.

thanks to www.thewho.net and the Live At Leeds and Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy LP liner notes.

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