“Another Tricky Day” by The Who

"Another Tricky Day" closes Face Dances, the Who's 1981 album and their ninth, and it gives the record an ending that starts as a shrug and turns into a pep talk. Pete Townshend wrote it, and he said the spark came from keyboardist John Bundrick, then playing with the band on the road. The song waves off all the talk of a social crisis as nothing more than one more difficult day, which makes it either stoic or glum depending on who's listening: Chris Charlesworth heard pessimism, while Steve Grantley and Alan Parker called it a pragmatic, optimistic way to end the album and set it beside the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

Bill Szymczyk produced and engineered it. Never sold as a single, it still made number 6 on America's Top Album Rock Tracks chart, and in 2015 Rolling Stone ranked it the Who's 48th greatest song.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.