Squeeze Me

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Lore & Background

The song was originally intended for a Who television special planned in 1974, where the band was to be surrounded by 100 topless women playing accordions. A demo featured a Farfisa organ-based arrangement and bluegrass banjos, which authors Steve Grantley and Alan Parker compared to the Beatles' 1968 song "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." This demo appeared on Pete Townshend's demo collection, *Scoop*. "Squeezebox" is a slang term for accordions and related instruments. Although Pete Townshend later said the song originated as a dirty joke, he claimed there was no double entendre, stating, "It's not about a woman's breasts, vaginal walls, or anything else of the ilk." The Who's bassist, John Entwistle, commented, "I dunno. Most songs have double meanings or no meaning at all. 'Squeeze Box' isn't that dirty. It doesn't say 'tits.'" Lead singer Roger Daltrey acknowledged the double meaning, saying, "There's nothing wrong with a bit of 'in-and-out,' mate!"

In Their Own Story

Pete Townshend bought an accordion and learned to play it one afternoon. He said, "The accordion gave the song a polka-esque rhythm, and the lyrics, which I wrote for fun, were intended as a poorly aimed dirty joke. I had no thought of it ever becoming a hit but amazingly recorded by the Who, to my disbelief. Further incredulity was caused when it became a hit for us in the USA." Roger Daltrey spoke positively of the song, praising its simplicity: "It's so refreshingly simple. An incredibly catchy song. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is and I love it for that." *Record World* said "the group gives a display of their tremendous creative powers; a lilting rocker with all the immediacy of a 'Happy Jack.'"

Reader's Guide

The song is written in three stanzas using the same closing refrain of "Mama's got a squeeze box/ Daddy never sleeps at night." The content of each stanza builds on the innuendo of the colloquial phrase of referring to a romantic partner as a "main squeeze" or simply a "squeeze." The first stanza is relatively ambiguous and introduces the main rhythm and beat followed by the first instance of the refrain. The second stanza becomes more explicit with the romantic couple ignoring their pets and even their children when their nighttime activity commences, stating, "'Cause she's playing all night," followed by the refrain. The third stanza becomes relatively undisguised in its use of metaphor referring to the couple's romantic activity as "in and out and in and out," followed by the closing instance of the refrain. The original version of the end of the song included the intonation of the words, "She goes, squeeze me, come on and squeeze me, Come on…" as the music faded out. The song was first performed live at the New Bingley Hall in Stafford on 3 October 1975, and remained in the set for the rest of the 1975–1976 tour, until drummer Keith Moon's final North American concert at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto on 21 October 1976. The band later played it again in the last leg of the 1982 Tour. The song was performed live again in 2014 during The Who Hits 50! tour.

Did You Know?

• Pete Townshend learned to play the accordion in one afternoon specifically for this song.
• The song was originally planned for a 1974 TV special where the band would be surrounded by 100 topless women playing accordions.
• Despite the song's success, Pete Townshend did not think highly of it and was astonished at its chart success.
• Freddy Fender's 1979 cover of 'Squeeze Box' reached No. 61 on the U.S. Country chart.
• The song is the Who's only international number-one hit, reaching No. 1 in Canada.