The 1960s band Pete Townshend said could play anything: “They would have a go”
While The Who were perhaps one of the most competent and bombastic rock groups of their era, they were much more the sort of band who used to fret over perfecting everything rather than comfortably improvising as they went along.
Of course, there’s no downside to being part of either camp, and The Who obviously made their approach work for them, as evidenced by the richly detailed concept albums that they released around their creative peak. However, guitarist Pete Townshend supposedly had a tough time understanding how the other half managed to live their lives and enjoy fruitful careers when they weren’t constantly looking to hone their craft in the studio.
During a 2023 interview with Rick Rubin for his Broken Record podcast, Townshend recalled a conversation he had with Bob Dylan in the 1960s, where he expressed his disbelief at the fact that he was constantly on the road, asking him: “Don’t you have a fucking life? You know, you’re just on the fucking road all the time.”
According to Townshend, Dylan’s response was characteristically straight to the point, telling him with a straight face that the reason he chooses to work this way is that he’s a folk singer. Naturally, not understanding what he meant by this curt and unhelpful answer, Townshend pressed him further about what it meant to be a folk singer.
Upon being pressed to give a more elaborate explanation, Dylan said that being a folk singer meant being someone with a good memory for songs, adding: “I’ve got 650 songs, and I have to keep playing them, otherwise I’ll forget them.”
Things began to fall into place for Townshend at this point, and he likened Dylan’s response to how he interpreted the approach of another classic band of the era. “It was a bit like the Grateful Dead,” he said, finally understanding Dylan’s reasoning. “They could [play] fucking anything that you came up with. So somebody in the crowd would sort of say: ‘Play Beethoven’s ‘Fifth Symphony!’ And they would have a go”
Perfection comes in different forms, and for the Grateful Dead, they were the sort of band who achieved their version of it on the stage rather than in the studio; the complete opposite of how Townshend and The Who preferred to operate.
What they had was a looseness, but twinned with an unmatched ability to be able to launch into a rendition of whatever song was thrown at them. They were essentially a walking jukebox in band form, and this is what earned them so many fans throughout the latter part of the 1960s and beyond. The Who, conversely, didn’t need to remember this many songs in order to entertain, they just had to nail the ones they already knew.
Townshend may not have been able to immediately grasp how this was possible, but then again, he knew where his strengths lay, and evidently, it wasn’t in perfectly memorising Beethoven and several hundred other compositions to be able to regurgitate on cue.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.