All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes is the fourth solo studio album by the English rock musician Pete Townshend, released on 14 June 1982 by Atco Records. Chris Thomas produced the album (who had also produced Townshend's previous studio album, Empty Glass) and it was recorded by Bill Price at three separate recording studios in London, England, which were Eel Pie, AIR and Wessex. The album peaked at No. 32 on the UK Albums Chart, and at No. 26 on the US Billboard 200.
All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes contains some compositions that were salvaged from later studio albums by his band the Who, and was released just under three months before their tenth studio album It's Hard (1982).
Recording and production
Along with the 11 songs on the album, other songs were also recorded, including "Body Language" (subsequently released in 1983 on the compilation album Scoop), a track called "Man Watching" (released as the B-side of "Face Dances, Pt. 2"), and "Dance It Away" (which was also performed in various forms live by the Who between 1979 and 1981, usually as a coda to their cover version of Martha and the Vandellas's 1964 song "Dancing in the Street"), and which was released as the B-side of "Uniforms". One further song "Vivienne" was listed on the cover of some early LP copies but not released at the time. This, along with "Man Watching" and "Dance It Away", were released as bonus tracks on the 2006 reissue.
Album title
Townshend explained the album title as referring to the "average American hero – somebody like a Clint Eastwood or a John Wayne. Somebody with eyes like slits..."
On the Listening Time promotional LP, Townshend said he should have won a "Stupid Title of the Year" award.
Video release
A 30-minute companion video was also released, featuring concept videos set to the musical backings of "Prelude", "Face Dances, Pt. 2", "Communication", "Uniforms (Corp d'Esprit)", "Stardom in Acton", "Exquisitely Bored", and a re-recorded version of "Slit Skirts", with a harmonica performance on the last song, not used on the studio cut.
Chalkie Davis, the director (with Carol Starr) of the video, said:
This has been out of print for years, though Pete Townshend put the videos up on his website in 2000, which were then subsequently uploaded to other sites on the Internet.