John Entwistle -- "Send in the Clones"

There is surprisingly little information available regarding John Entwistle's planned science fiction rock opera from the late 1970s. It's both surprising and maddening considering how much has been written about The Who and their many projects. 

In the liner notes of Who Are You, Entwistle is quoted as saying, ""I had started a concept album along the same lines as Lifehouse. My story was a little different. It was set in the future. I put it on the shelf for a long time. When that album came along I took them off the shelf and changed them around a little bit. But '905' was actually one of the songs from that. The hero's name was '905' and he lives with this guy named '503' and they're absolutely identical. There aren't any women around because that's what they're eating."

But the project was never fully completed, partially because Entwistle reportedly decided that the story was too close to that of "Soylent Green."

When The Who first began working on Who Are You, Pete Townsend tried to create a sequel to Lifehouse -- which is odd since Lifehouse itself was never finished. But as Townsend struggled with the new project, it was decided that maybe both the sequel and Entwistle's concept could be merged. However, somewhere along the way, Who Are You became a regular Who album with leftover elements of the earlier projects. And most people at the time were none the wiser.

While two songs from Entwistle's project are known, the rest are up for debate. It's unclear whether he actually wrote enough songs for the full album. It's also unknown if his concept was originally meant to be a Who project or a solo one. But I've utilized a mix of tracks recorded both by the band and solo that kind of fit the theme.

SIDE A
1. Overture
2. Had Enough
3. 905
4. Sleeping Man
5. One at a Time

SIDE B
1. Dangerous
2. It's Your Turn
3. You
4. Too Late the Hero

While I'd considered trying to put together this album in the past, the lack of info and questions regarding what tracks should be included always left me stymied. What got me rethinking about it was finding an apparently unreleased outtake titled "Overture" on YouTube. I have no idea if this is truly an Entwistle composition or not, but if true it gives us a nice beginning. Due to the fact that it's all synthesizer makes me think that this wasn't completed. But, again, I've no way of knowing.

From the liner notes of Who Are You, we know that "905" and "Had Enough" were both originally part of the project. I've also read that "Dangerous" and "One at a Time" from The Who's It's Hard album were originally from the project as well. 

One item from Entwistle's liner notes quote caught my eye -- his reference to "the hero" of the story. That led me to think that maybe the song "Too Late the Hero" -- the title track from Entwistle's 1981 solo album -- was also part of the project. With these six tunes, I then picked and chose other Entwistle songs from his solo album and Who albums to fill out the tracklist. The truth is, I could be way off. But the tracklist I'm providing here is as good as any other attempt I've seen.

The songs "Had Enough" and "905" can be found on The Who's Who Are You. "You" is on The Who's Face Dances album."Sleeping Man" and "Too Late the Hero" are from Entwistle's solo album Too Late the Hero. "Dangerous," "It's Your Turn" and "One at a Time" are from The Who's It's Hard. As far as "Overture" is concerned, I ripped it from YouTube, but it may be on bootlegs. (Edit: "Overture" was included as a bonus track when Too Late the Hero was rereleased in 2007, but the album appears to now be out of print).

I don't know if Entwistle ever had a title for the story. I tried to come up with something thought-provoking, original, and interesting, but I failed miserably. All I could think of was Send in the Clones, which is silly and unoriginal. Maybe I'll change it later.

For a cover, I found this image on the web and added titles.