Song 183: “Pinball Wizard” by the Who, part 1: Always Playing Clean

Apologies for the delay in posting this episode — I had a chronic illness flare-up and a frankly awful January. With luck, part two of this story will be up before the end of February. For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a multi-episode look at the song “Pinball Wizard” by The Who. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have an eighty-two-minute bonus episode available, on “Father and Son” by Cat Stevens . Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at and (more…)

You can listen to Song 183: “Pinball Wizard” by the Who, part 1: Always Playing Clean online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Song 183: “Pinball Wizard” by the Who, part 1: Always Playing Clean is an episode from A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey.

This episode is 1:44:32 long.

This episode was published on Feb 12, 2026.

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