Pete Townshend Release New Single After 29 Years

After 29 years, Pete Townshend released his first solo single “Can’t Outrun the Truth.”

The newly-released song was written and produced by Townshend’s wife, Rachel Fuller, in 2021 inspired by the personal challenges of the pandemic. A portion of every download sale will be given to the Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity long supported by the Who.

In a statement, Fuller said she wrote the song while suffering back pain at the start of the COVID lockdown. She explained:

“We’d just moved house and Pete was as happy as Larry up in his studio, working every day.

“I couldn’t do any creative work and obviously, we couldn’t go anywhere. And I really started to think about how unbelievably difficult this period of time was going to be for so many people. I wrote lyrics and then I sat at the piano and wrote the music, and then I thought, ‘Oh, I really would like to record it because it’s really not a bad song at all – and my singing days are long over.’ So I asked Pete to record the demo.”

The Who guitarist played guitar, violin, and lap steel on the track. He said:

“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. … 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.”

Stream the new song below.