The Who Song Resource

Hi there, and thank you for visiting.

In late 2022 I was enjoying a discussion, on the Steve Hoffman Forums, about the mind-boggling array of variations to be found in the catalogue of Who recordings. I thought I could help the world's Who researchers and collectors by creating a searchable online database, based on the details I've been squirrelling away, in iTunes, for some years.

This site's purpose is not to document every manifestation of every song. For example, the site won't help if your goal is to identify every album on Earth that contains 'Pictures Of Lily'. Instead, if you're interested in identifying the different versions of 'Pictures Of Lily' that have been officially released, a quick search will reveal:

the single version [mono]
the album version [mono]
the 1968 'simulated stereo' version
the 1971 'simulated stereo' version
the live version from the Monterey International Pop Music Festival.

In spite of my intention to include only unique tracks in this database, in some cases I've allowed the same track to appear more than once, for the researcher's sake. For example, the question, "Does the original mix of 'Pictures Of Lily' with the volume bump appear on only the UK single, the US single, or both?" will be quickly answered by finding the exact same track on both singles.

My iTunes library of Who songs is worth a quick mention, because it'll help make sense of the various omissions from this site... I use iTunes as a 'soft' replica of my physical Who library (vinyl and CDs). But there's a distinction: the iTunes library contains, from the standard canon of Who albums, only the songs I like and want to hear regularly. On the other hand, I obsessively include every official Who collectable or rarity I can find. For example, because I don't particularly like 'Please Please Please' from the My Generation album, it's not in my iTunes, but the various (collectable) studio versions of 'Young Man Blues' are.

So, my iTunes' library is obviously far from complete. And yet, an export from that library was used as the foundation for this site's database. So the site is also far from complete. However, everything has to start somewhere, and I feel that this site, as it stands today, has some utility for Who collectors. I'll be adding the missing songs as time permits, and invite your collaboration in the form of corrections, additions and suggestions (please visit the Submit Content page).

Jason Paris

January 12, 2023