Pete Townshend Quotes - Page 5

Prayer TV looks like pay TV to me.

We have to focus on his early work, and just one or two of his movies, and elements of his TV shows, to keep his memory pure. People now know that Elvis could play a mean rhythm guitar himself, and needed no other musicians to perform a great song. But Elvis was not just a rock star, he was an all-round entertainer.

It's sad when people break up.

I'M FREE! - I'm free, And freedom tastes of reality, I'm free - I'm free, An' I'm waiting for you to follow me.

What the Who is all about is exactly that and it always has been. If it exists today for this concert, it's in response again to a function which is happening out there on the street.

I am writing better Stephen Sondheim songs than even Stephen Sondheim is writing.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest ... finest ... tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness.

Beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real.

All good art cannot help but confront denial on its way to truth.

There's a man upon that ledge, he's only cleaning windows. What a shame for the pain we're missing. Gonna lean back on my wall and pray for him to fall.

Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre.

Even modern English people are imperious, superior, ridden by class. All of the hypocrisy and the difficulties that are endemic in being British also make it an incredibly fertile place culturally. A brilliant place to live. Sad but true.

When people keep repeating That you'll never fall in love When everybody keeps retreating But you can't seem to get enough Let my love open the door Let my love open the door Let my love open the door To your heart.

Is your perception of 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' so shallow that it's violated by dancing raisins?

I bought a Dutch barge and turned it into a recording studio. My plan was to go to Paris and record rolling down the Seine.

Punk rock was the tsunami that threatened to drown us all in 1977.

Bob Dylan did the first really long record - Like A Rolling Stone - I think it was four minutes.

Turning something into low resolution data does seem to make it worth less in the modern world.

Water is more precious than oil. Both are more precious than music. Music won't heat a house or help a plant to grow.

Don't cry Don't raise your eye Its only teenage wasteland.

But what was interesting about what the Who did is that we took things which were happening in the pop genre and represent them to people so that they see them in a new way. I think the best example is Andy Warhol's work, the image of Marilyn Monroe or the Campbell's soup can.