Guitar Tricks Insider Dec/Jan | Page 39

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