I can't believe I've written two comments in a row about the same British rock critic this morning, but...

According to Pete Townshend himself, the reason he wrote "Pinball Wizard" is that the biggest rock critic in the UK at the time, a friend of his named Nik Cohn, absolutely hated anything "progressive" or artsy in music. But Pete knew Nik was an avid pinball player, so he wrote a song about pinball so at least Nik would like that part!