By April 1980 we in the rock music world were beginning to miss Townshend’s new music, which had been a pretty consistent mainstay of rock’n’roll for fifteen years prior but had been understandably MIA since the sudden death of madcap Who drummer Keith Moon in 1978.
Townshend filled Empty Glass with his grief over the loss of his friend, as well as very personal subjects including alcoholism, adult relationships, and his conflicted reaction to Punk Rock in the songs“Rough Boys”,”A Little is Enough”,”Gonna Get Ya”, and pop spiritual“Let My Love Open the Door“, a Top Five US hit."I decided that practically all the personal problems I had – whatever they were,
whether it was boozing, or difficulty at home with my family – was because of the Who on the road," he told Rolling Stone. "When we came off the road, I spent two and a half years not touring – under great pressure from the band to tour, but I resisted, and said, 'No, I want to try it and see what happens.' I got to the end of that period, and all my problems were still there. Some of them were worse.
But what was strange about that time was that it somehow opened me up: I was able to put a slightly different slant on the qualities that I look for, or that other people look for, in life."
Townshend wrote "'My wife doesn't love me anymore,' I said. 'What should I do?' 'She doesn't love you at all?' he wobbled his head as he spoke. 'She said she loved me a little.' 'Ah!' Adi clapped his hands and smiled. 'A little! That's good. Love is universal. Limitless. So even a little is enough.' I wrote a song called 'A Little Is Enough,' and recorded it using the same system as I'd used on 'Let My Love Open the Door.' Although I'd always thought my love songs were terrible, I think this is one of the best songs I've ever written."
"I decided that practically all the personal problems I had – whatever they were, whether it was boozing, or difficulty at home with my family – was because of the Who on the road," he told Rolling Stone. "When we came off the road, I spent two and a half years not touring – under great pressure from the band to tour, but I resisted, and said, 'No, I want to try it and see what happens.' I got to the end of that period, and all my problems were still there. Some of them were worse. But what was strange about that time was that it somehow opened me up: I was able to put a slightly different slant on the qualities that I look for, or that other people look for, in life."
"'Empty Glass' is a direct jump from Persian Sufi poetry," Townshend said. "Hafiz – he was a poet in the 14th century – used to talk about God's love being wine, and that we learn to be intoxicated, and that the heart is like an empty cup. You hold up the heart, and hope that God's grace will fill your cup with his wine. You stand in the tavern, a useless soul waiting for the barman to give you a drink – the barman being God.
"It's also Meher Baba talking about the fact that the heart is like a glass, and that God can't fill it up with his love – if it's already filled with love for yourself," Townshend continued. "I used those images deliberately. It was quite weird going to Germany and talking to people over there about it: 'This 'Empty Glass' – is that about you becoming an alcoholic?'"
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