Who Came First
studio album by Pete Townshend
Who Came First is the debut solo studio album by the English musician Pete Townshend, released in 1972 on Track Records in the UK and Track/Decca in the US.
It includes previously released material as well as tracks that originated as demos for the Who's aborted concept album Lifehouse, which became the basis of Who's Next (1971).
The original release had a gatefold cover and included a poster with additional photos of Meher Baba from the Louis van Gasteren film Beyond Words (1967). The cover photo of Townshend standing on eggs is a reference to the eternal question "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” (although the album title changes it to "Who Came First" as a reference to the Townshend's band the Who).
The album peaked at number 30 on the UK Albums Chart and at number 69 on the US Billboard 200.
Background and content
Townshend had already participated with other artists on two previous albums in tribute to his guru Meher Baba, Happy Birthday and I Am. These albums were distributed in very small quantities between 1970 and 1972 in the UK. Soon after Decca asked Townshend for permission to release the recordings, as inferior copies were circulating in the US as bootlegs. Rather than re-issuing the original albums Townshend decided to change the track list substantially and develop the project into his first "official" solo album. Three of Townshend's demos for Lifehouse were selected, along with two songs each from the earlier tribute albums and two additional songs.
Lifehouse
The Lifehouse demos included are: "Pure and Easy," edited from its original length of 8:35; "Let's See Action"; and (with minor overdubs added) "Time Is Passing." Of these, only "Let's See Action" had seen prior release, as a single by the Who in 1971. The Who's versions of the remaining two Lifehouse songs were eventually released on Odds & Sods (1974) and its reissued version.
The public source identifies “Who Came First” as studio album by Pete Townshend. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Came, First and studio.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1751365. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1971, 1967 and 1970.
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This entry incorporates text from “Who Came First” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.