Pete Townshend Quotes

Pete Townshend (28)

Birth:	19th May, 1945
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Actor, Author, Composer, Guitarist, Lyricist, Singer

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Today's Anniversary - 24th May

Births

• 1928 - William Trevor
• 1953 - Alfred Molina
• 1914 - Lilli Palmer
• 1965 - John Christopher Reilly Jr.
• 1949 - Abbey Lincoln

Deaths

• 1901 - Charlotte Mary Yonge
• 1879 - William Lloyd Garrison
• 1895 - John Hawley
• 1543 - Nicolaus Copernicus
• 1996 - Joseph Mitchell

• I’m only interested in rites of passage stories.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Interesting

• What I’m trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It’s my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it’s very much alive.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Theatre, Working, Drama, Music, Remain, Angle

• What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Father, Laughter

  Tags in Theatrical, Exposure, Jewish, Character, Took, Desire

• I just could not believe that 30 years later we’re still looking at people who are supposed to write little 2-minute pop that when they actually try to do something that’s a little bit more they regard it as pretentious.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Regard, Actually, Pop, Pretentious, Year, Later, Looking

• As a young man, every bone in my body wanted to pick up a machine gun and kill Germans. And yet I had absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly nobody invited me to do the job. But that’s what I felt that I was trained to do. Now no part of my upbringing was militaristic.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Invited, Germans, Upbringing, Nobody, Bone, Kill

• He is the king. If it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ‘Rumble,’ I would have never picked up a guitar.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rumble, Link

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Salvation, Savior, Mention, Songs, Jesus

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Messiahs, Guts, Door, Prayer, Temple

• I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Born

• It’s an ordinary day for Brian. Like, he died every day, you know.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Died, Ordinary, Every Day, Drug

• I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Unwittingly, Pain, Change, Changed, Audience, Shown

• What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Almost, Distinct, Learned, Reflect

• A lot of my audience are in their 50s. But they want me to pretend to continue to be pretending.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Pretending, Audience

• It’s like the mod thing is happening again.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mod, Happening, Modest

• I only really started to go to plays and to be interested in drama 20 years ago when as an artist I was already well-rounded. I think I’m more disciplined today.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Interested, Plays, Disciplined, Rounded, Drama, Artist

• 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.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Anger

  Tags in Controversial, Tremendously, Writing, Angry

• 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.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Sad

  Tags in Endemic, Incredibly, Creatively, Incidents, Fertile, Superior, Hypocrisy, Culturally, People

• 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.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Function, Concert, Response, Happening

• What theatre started to look at much earlier than any other form was the internal operations of ordinary people, sometimes using mythic models in order to tell the story.

  Pete Townshend

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Operations, Mythic, Ordinary

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

  Pete Townshend

  Tags in Rolling