Pete Townshend has a brand new single out called Can’t Outrun The Truth, which was released by Polydor Records and hits the digital download stores today!
The track was composed and produced by Rachel Fuller under the pen name Charlie Pepper, and was recorded at Pete’s various home studios in England and France. The song has a melancholy country Western style, with Pete singing and performing on lap steel guitar and violin to accompany the lovely orchestral background.
Rachel wrote the song during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, and lyrically it deals with the emotional issues of isolation that so many people experienced during that period. Since charities were hit especially hard during the pandemic, Pete and Rachel decided to release the song to help raise money for Teenage Cancer Trust.
In a video chat with Rachel, Pete 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. 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.”
To help raise money during the 2023 Teenage Cancer Trust week at the Royal Albert Hall, Pete signed 200 special 12” vinyl singles with gorgeous cover artwork by the famous English artist Damien Hirst. These limited edition records are only available to patrons attending the TCT shows this week, and will likely sell out quickly. All proceeds from the signed vinyl, and a portion of all digital downloads will go towards Teenage Cancer Trust.
There is also a fantastic new video of Can't Outrun the Truth that features Pete performing acoustic guitar, lap steel guitar and violin, interspersed with scenes of dancer Seirian Griffiths portraying a young man during lockdown. The video was produced by Nike van Schie, and directed by Michael Nunn and Director of Photography William Trevitt.
To help promote the new single, Pete and Rachel sat down for a ‘Kitchen tabling with the Townshends’ chat, which was posted as a series of video clips on social media in the weeks leading up to the release. Here is the full video of that discussion.
Photo credit: Can't Outrun the Truth Facebook page
