I have heard interviews with Pete describing how difficult the Lifehouse period was for him. While writing Tommy Pete worked very closely with Kit Lambert, who loved the idea of a Rock Opera in part as a way to thumb his nose at the stuffy world of classical music and theater. But when Pete started work on Lifehouse, Kit had very different, let's say, priorities. He didn't work with Pete on the story at all, which involved a suit that gave the wearer a kind of proto-virtual reality/internet experience. Instead, Kit was going around Pete's back, telling everyone that he and Pete were about to work on the Tommy movie and to forget all this Lifehouse nonsense. So no-one tried to make sense of the story, and this time, Kit did nothing to help Pete clarify the plot, and the project devolved into Who's Next -- a very impressive phoenix that rose from the ashes of Lifehouse.