In 1985, After The Fire was a minor hit for The Who’s lead singer, Roger Daltrey.  It appeared on Daltrey’s sixth solo album, Under A Raging Moon, and it was helped, on its way up the charts, by a music video that was put into heavy rotation on MTV.

After The Fire was written by Pete Townshend and it was originally meant to be a Who song.  The plan was originally to debut After The Fire at Live Aid but, because of a scheduling mishap, the band did not get a chance to rehearse the new song before performing and so After The Fire was dropped from the band’s set list.  It was instead given to Daltrey, who included it on his solo album.

This is perhaps the only song to name drop both Dom DeLuise and Matt Dillon.  Judging from the lyrics about Dillon riding “his brother’s motorcycle” in black-and-white, the lyrics were probably referring to his performance in Rumble Fish.  The reference to Dom DeLuise is a little more cryptic.  Was Pete Townshend a fan of The Cannonball Run?  Or was he watching The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas while writing the song?  We may never know.

Enjoy!