Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshendis an English musician, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the rock band The Who. His career with the Who spans more than 50 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 20th century...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth19 May 1945
CityLondon, England
dancing finding-yourself losing-yourself
Dance is the only thing that lets you lose yourself and find yourself at the same time.
writing rocks rock-and-roll
The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage.
play yesterday guitar
Pick up my guitar and play, just like yesterday / And I get on my knees and pray.
new-york mean men
Link is a quiet man to meet- easy and courteous. His music, though, betrays that deep inside he gets very very mean very often. I remember being made very uneasy the first time I heard Rumble , and yet very excited by the guitar sound. And his voice! He sounds like a cross between Jagger and Van Morrison, even sometimes like Robbie Robertson. We met him in New York in 1970 while recording Who's Next.... this later inspired the b-side Wasp Man, a tune we dedicated to Link Wray.
loss hearing terrible
Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired.
song heart sea
I sing my heart out to the wide open spaces I sing my heart out to the infinite sea I sing my vision to the sky-high mountains I sing my song to the free.
responsibility thinking people
It makes me angry when people insist that I have a responsibility to do what they think I should do.
air gypsy
I'm an air-conditioned gypsy.
feelings bachelors terrible
It's terrible feeling like an eligible bachelor but no women seeming to agree with you.
thinking produce incumbents
I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness.
anger proportion blur
I have to say that anger is the blanket that comes around me, and that blunts and blurs my sense of proportion.
guitar brands ifs
If I were to have my own brand of guitars, they would have to be industructable.
song writing sondheim
I am writing better Stephen Sondheim songs than even Stephen Sondheim is writing.
writing thinking firsts
Good old Pete. That's me. But I find it hard to think of myself in the first person when I'm writing about The Who. So many times he has willingly sat down to write about the good old Who. Isn't he too old to masturbate?