Pete Townshend releases video for first solo single after 29 years

The legendary The Who co-founder, guitarist, sometimes singer and main songwriter Pete Townshend released an official video for “Can’t Outrun the Truth”, his first solo single after 29 years.

The track was composed and produced by Rachel Fuller under her nom de plume Charlie Pepper, and all proceeds from vinyl sales plus at least 10p from every download will go to the Teenage Cancer Trust.

“The song was inspired by the difficulties everyone had encountered emotionally due to the lack of human interaction caused by the pandemic. It also occurred to Rachel that young people undergoing cancer treatment may identify with these feelings of isolation,” the official statement said.

Hear the new Pete Townshend song “Can’t Outrun the Truth”:

Pete Townshend talked about the new song, saying: “I’ve helped Rachel make the demos for several of her theatrical projects. She’s a really fast worker, it’s not that you say to me, let’s go into the studio for two weeks and work on this project. We do it, two hours later, or an hour later, it’s done – so it’s easy to work with her”.

“The pandemic years were terrible for charities; the Teenage Cancer Trust was created in order to take the money from a series of concerts at the Albert Hall every year and various other things and that had all dropped out.”

“So, the idea of doing this, which is it’s something that has sprung out of lockdown about mental illness, but also for this particular charity. If you’ve got a scenario in which somebody in your family or a teenager has got cancer, they’re being treated, lockdown hits, and you’re not allowed to go and visit them. There’s a poignancy to the whole thing about the song,” Pete Townshend said.