Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand
| "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand" | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Single by The Who | |
| from the album The Who Sell Out | |
| B-side | "I Can't Reach You" |
| Released | 2 February 1968 |
| Recorded | 24 October 1967. De Lane Lea Studios, London |
| Genre | Pop rock |
| Length | 2:04 |
| Label | Track Records |
| Writer(s) | Pete Townshend |
| Producer(s) | Kit Lambert |
"Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand" is a song written by Pete Townshend and first released on The Who's 1967 album The Who Sell Out. The best known version of the song has acoustic guitar and an arrangement using Latin percussion instruments. The song has ambiguous lyrics that have been subject to a variety of interpretations. Four different recordings of the song have been released by The Who. It was later performed by a number of other artists.
Unlike many Who songs from the 1960s, "Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand" recalls the typical pop song convention of praising a pretty girl but does not provide any description of her appearance, focusing instead on Mary Anne's hand tremor. The reason for the shaking is not clear: Mary Anne may have some affliction or else the song may be, as Chris Charlesworth describes it, The Who's "second great song about masturbation" (after the band's 1967 single "Pictures of Lily"): Steve Grantley and Alan Parker suggest that the reason can be inferred from the line "What they've done to a man, those shaky hands." However, some versions of the song use the lyrics: "What they've done to her, man, those shaky hands." Rolling Stone praised the "barely-beneath-the-surface humor of the lyric".
The song has a melody described by Allmusic's Mark Deming as "charming" and "a tune you couldn't forget even if you tried". Author John Atkins describes the song as a "delightful pop song in the Everly Brothers mold", while Charlesworth suggests that, regardless of the lyrics, the song "would have been a winner on melody alone". Grantley and Parker describe the vocals as a cross between The Mamas and the Papas and Simon and Garfunkel.
The acoustic guitar version of the song on The Who Sell Out was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios on 24 October 1967.
A different version of the song, using electric guitar, was used in 1967 as the B-side of the "I Can See for Miles" single in the US and Australia. The B-side version used a mono mix. A stereo remix of this version was also included on the 1998 remastered version of the Odds and Sods album. Grantley and Parker describe this version as having a "gentle atmosphere". On this version, tremolo is added to Roger Daltrey's voice on the word "shaky".
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