“I shouldn’t have done it”: the era that Pete Townshend always resented
Not every artist is able to juggle the pressures of being a bandleader like Pete Townshend could. As much as he was capable of making music on his own, there were always little cracks in the armour that always tested him, only for him to rise like a phoenix from the ashes whenever making another one of the band’s masterpieces. When things were at a low point, that was when Townshend looked back on his career, wishing he had never put out some of his albums.
Because leading The Who is a harder job than it looks, and it doesn’t exactly look easy. As much as Townshend loved the idea of breaking down barriers with the music he made, there was always bound to be a little bit of resentment among the rest of the band for not having the same amount of writing credits on an album or not being able to create those classic stage moves that he could whenever he broke out his trademark windmill arm.
But what Townshend did as a guitar player is like having to juggle different musical roles at the same time. He was the one operating all of the machinery when working on the synth parts of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, but when the band played it live, they had to leave it up to fate when working on getting the timing right, along with Townshend filling out the sound either with huge riffs or playing a combination of rhythm and lead at the same time.
As soon as the band began carrying on without Keith Moon, though, Townshend started to have less of an urge to return on a regular basis. He was more than happy to put out the old solo album in the 1970s or collaborate with Ronnie Lane in the meantime, but outside of tracks like ‘You Better You Bet’, Townshend had a greater understanding of what he could do on his own, especially since he could make hits on his own as well like ‘Let My Love Open The Door’.
“I couldn’t support The Who at the time, with compositions, so what the fuck was I doing?”
Pete Townshend
The audience was certainly there, but something was always missing whenever he got up onstage. There was still that infectious energy whenever he struck a chord, but not having John Entwistle thundering away behind him or Roger Daltrey swinging his microphone, the sheer spectacle of his old band was gone, which isn’t what you want when making rock operas in your spare time.
Albums like White City may have sold decently, but Townshend said he would have sooner forgotten the entire thing, saying, “It wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. My solo career was a mistake, I shouldn’t have done it. I couldn’t support The Who at the time, with compositions, so what the fuck was I doing? You know, at one point, I had two contracts, to make seven albums over five years, and that was the kind of place that Phil Collins was in at the same time, and he managed it. But I was working for a group who didn’t write any material, so I had to… anyway, blah, blah, blah. It’s not a ‘poor me’ story, it’s just the fact that the reality of it was impossible.”
That’s only if you’re looking at what he was doing as a performer. During this time, Townshend was also trying to get his writing career off the ground. While he did submit many of his works to publishers to get them over the finish line, it’s a mystery as to when he slept throughout this entire era.
However, the real tragedy behind Townshend’s solo career is that some of his works never reached the full potential that they should have. It’s easier for everyone to live with the fact that the idea never reached the heights it should have when it was first conceived, but it’s a shame that some conceptual works like White City and The Iron Man never got Daltrey’s voice over everything.
