“Slip Kid” by The Who

Pete Townshend first wrote "Slip Kid" for Lifehouse, the rock opera he ended up shelving, and the Who dragged it back out in 1975 for The Who by Numbers, their seventh studio album, with Glyn Johns producing. Townshend built it as a cautionary word on the record racket, and he has since noted that it fits plenty of other situations just as well.

Put out as an American single with "Dreaming from the Waist" on the flip, it failed to chart. Time has been kinder. Critics now slot it onto lists of the best Who songs and like to call it underrated, it keeps turning up on compilations, and the band has hauled it onstage every so often over the years, once in 2016 without so much as a rehearsal.

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