Quotes by Pete Townshend

About Pete Townshend:

Peter Dennis Blandford is 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I want to age with some dignity.

Pete Townshend

I have to say that anger is the blanket that comes around me, and that blunts and blurs my sense of proportion.

Pete Townshend

I didn't start to collect records and listen to guitar players properly until I went to art school, when I'd already been playing for five years. So my style was already formed, and that's why I think it's so unique.

Pete Townshend

To be completely honest, I think if I hadn't been bullied into the band, I would have been happier as an art student. I would have been happier in a Brian Eno world.

Pete Townshend

Nothing else in nature behaves so consistently and rigidly as a human being in pursuit of hell.

Pete Townshend

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

Pete Townshend

Wiggy & I were drug buddies. There is no tighter compact for friendship. There is no greater potential for deceit.

Pete Townshend

For the first time, a whole generation had the economic & educational opportunity to turn their backs on the dead end factory jobs of their parents, who, traumatized by two world wars, had responded by creating a safety blanket of conformity.

Pete Townshend

We didn't need light & shade, irony or humor. An iconic Daltrey bellow could convey an extrodinary range of human emotion; withering sadness, self pity, loneliness, abandonment, spiritual desperation, the loss of childhood, as well as the more obviou...

Pete Townshend

Roger Daltrey had been expelled for smoking, but was still impudently showing up on campus to visit his various cronies. I'd first met him after he won a playground fight with a Chinese boy. I thought his tactics were dirty and when I shouted as much...

Pete Townshend

I slept badly that night, my vivid dreams populated by ghosts. As much as it revived ailing spirits in day light, the fizzy energy of NY seemed to feed on human frailty at night.

Pete Townshend

I heard in my own voice the tulmult of a young man playig a role, uneasily, repackaging black R&B music from America, relying on gimmicky outfits, and pretending to be wild & free when in reality he needed to be looked after by his mother.

Pete Townshend

Since so much of this music bubbled up urgently from my subconsious mind, I'm left to interpret it much like anyone else.

Pete Townshend

The music we play has to be tomorrow's, the things we say have to be today, and the reason for bothering is yesterday.

Pete Townshend

In 1945 music had a serious purpose; to defy post war depression & revitalize the romantic & hopeful aspirations of an exhausted ppl.

Pete Townshend

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

Pete Townshend

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 ...

Pete Townshend

Most of my songs are about Jesus. Most of my songs are about the idea that there is salvation, and that there is a Savior. But I won't mention his name in a song just to get a cheap play.

Pete Townshend

If I told you what it takes to reach the highest high you'd laugh and say nothing that simple, but you've been told many times before messiah's point you to the door though no one's got the guts to leave the temple.

Pete Townshend

I'm only interested in rites of passage stories.

Pete Townshend

Author Bio

  • NamePete Townshend
  • DescriptionEnglish rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author
  • BornMay 19, 1945
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionSinger-songwriter; Guitarist; Singer; Composer; Banjoist; Mandolinist
  • WorksWon't Get Fooled Again; My Generation