COVER STORY
Photo Credit: Paul Natkin/
Photo Reserve, Inc.
ON H
SONGWRITING
INTERVIEW
WITH PETE
TOWNSHEND
BY BRUCE
POLLOCK
onest to a fault, Pete Townshend
reveals that he first picked up a guitar
because, “I really did think at the
time that it was going to be the only way I
was ever going to get laid.” At art school, his
first song, “We Close Tonight,” was written
in the aftermath of blowing his only chance
with his first serious crush. And it was
never his intention to write a rock opera in
the first place. He didn’t feel his two major
assaults on the rock opera form, Tommy
and Quadrophenia, had proper endings.
“That was my manger, Kit Lambert’s idea.”
Finally, he might never have picked up guitar
and pen again had he not been asked to
do so by a nameless executive at EMI, thus
potentially depriving rock of one of its greatest
songwriters, and the world of such classics as
“Magic Bus,” “Pinball Wizard,” “My Generation,”
“Happy Jack,” “Substitute,” “Behind Blue Eyes,”
and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
DEC/JAN
DIGITAL EDITION
39