"Blue Red And Grey" is the lone cover song on Everything You Need. In March of 2007 I was scheduled to perform at the Berklee SXSW Pete Townshend tribute in Austin and was pouring over The Who and Pete Townshend solo albums to find the right song I could really lend a personal touch to, a lyric I could identify with and convincingly be that character. A good friend of mine, Adam Ginsburg is a music and art historian, and in conversation with him, he rattled off a list of more obscure Who and Pete Townshend songs. I spent several days getting into the catalogue and "Blue Red & Grey" from The Who By Numbers (A Pete Townshend solo track on the album) stood out with this delicately optimistic message of enjoying every moment of the day; not such a typical message from Pete, although it is juxtaposed with irony and tales of how people decide to live their lives, a to each his own story. Some say Pete referred to this song as "the chink in the armor" and after listening you can see why, it's a celebration of life without holding onto the despair he often writes about, others say he wrote this during a time of struggle with suicide, I could see both being true. I grew so attached to this sweet song, I had to put it on the album. At that point Eddie Vedder was the only artist I found who'd covered the tune. I've attached his live YouTube clip below.
I've included The Who's original version of the song on the player here as well as my album version and the instrumental. I originally thought I'd also play ukulele as Pete does. Ukulele was my first instrument, my grandfather's old Gibson ukulele..but came to find out my dad had sold the Uke...bummer news. So picked up the guitar, threw a capo on 7 and came up with the acoustic guitar part. Beyond that is was easy to identify with and sink into the lyric. After the release of Everything You Need, XM's The Loft picked up my rendition as well as various internet radio stations who recognized what the song was. Esquire Magazine named my rendition in "Esquire's 'Best Cover Songs 2009, Cover Songs Men Could Listen To" - The Who "Blue, Red, And Grey" by Manda Mosher. I love this gem of a song.
Enjoy Blue Red & Grey!
