The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend is the sixth solo studio album by Pete Townshend of The Who, released in 1989 as a concept album adaptation of Ted Hughes' story The Iron Man. It also stars Roger Daltrey, Deborah Conway, John Lee Hooker, and Nina Simone. The three then-surviving original members of The Who (Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Townshend) performed as a group in two songs, "Dig" and "Fire", although the latter was a cover of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's hit. (The Who would later perform "Dig" live during their 1989 reunion tour.) "A Friend Is a Friend" and "I Won't Run Anymore" were commercially released as singles; "Fire" was issued as a promo-only single in the United States. Cash Box said that "A Friend is a Friend" "finds Pete in an uplifting vein, with falsetto vocals and strummed guitar." A stage version was mounted at the Young Vic theatre in London in 1993. On the strength of this, Warner Bros. optioned the story for a movie that, with a very different adaptation of the story, became The Iron Giant; Townshend received an executive-producer credit.

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Track listing

All songs written by Pete Townshend except where noted.

Bonus tracks from the 2006 US Hip-O Records release

Bonus tracks from the 2006 Japanese Imperial release

Non-album tracks