The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend

The Iron Man: The Musical
Studio album by
Released27 June 1989
Recorded1986–1989
StudioEel Pie Studios, London
GenreRock
Length45:36
LabelAtlantic (US)
ProducerPete Townshend
Pete Townshend chronology
Another Scoop
(1987)
The Iron Man: The Musical
(1989)
Psychoderelict
(1993)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic
Hi-Fi News & Record ReviewA*:1/2
Rolling Stone

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 (Roger 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.