The one musician who broke Pete Townshend’s heart: “He deserved better”
Among all the wild stories of Pete Townshend’s feuds, fallouts, and fights, there’s one rare exception. In this particular tale from the 1960s, he puts aside his rock and roll wild card reputation and shows a surprising moment of empathy.
By now, endless words have been written about the various deaths of the era and beyond. The music world holds so many tragedies as the tortured artist trope glamorises struggle to an extent where so many have been left alone to suffer until they couldn’t stand it anymore. Or, the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle has swallowed them up, leading to so many losses due to addiction.
For someone like Townshend, he saw it first-hand. We’re considering it in retrospect, but he was right there on the frontlines, and the many, many idols lost from throughout the 1960s and ‘70s weren’t just stars; they were his friends.
Keith Moon’s death was naturally one that hit him incredibly hard as his bandmate was lost to an overdose. In the aftermath, Townshend said he was behaving “completely irrational, bordering on insane”, demanding that the band keep on touring simply because he didn’t know what else to do and couldn’t bear to face up to his grief.
It’s tough to even think about, and it’s so often forgotten that at the core of all of these famous stories about the death of celebrities, there are real people and real friends in mourning. Since the 1980s, Townshend has been a vocal supporter of improving drug rehabilitation services because of the sheer amount of loss he’s faced. He’s hosted fundraiser concerts to raise money for addiction charities and is clearly incredibly passionate about doing something about the issue – perhaps because there were so many times when he tried before, but couldn’t save someone.
This is one of those times. “When we played The Rolling Stones’ Rock And Roll Circus, I was very upset about Brian’s condition,” the guitarist recalled about the famed 1968 show. In history, it’s recorded as one of The Stones’ crowning moments. But for Townshend, it was a worrying one as he saw how bad of a shape the band’s founder was in.
“Brian was defeated,” he said mournfully and was determined to try and help. “I took Mick and Keith aside, and they were quite frank about it all; they said Brian had ceased to function, they were afraid he would slip away,” he recalled.
So often, the fate of Brian Jones is written about as if the rest of the band simply didn’t care, but The Who player didn’t see that. “They certainly were not hard-nosed about him,” he said as he saw how much they cared, but he also saw their drive, adding, “But they were determined not to let him drag them down; that was clear. Brian certainly slipped away that evening.”
“He died soon after,” Townshend said. He’d come to have a long list of lost friends, but Jones hit hard because he was the first. “I was melodramatically upset when he died. He was the first friend of mine that had ever died. He was the first person I knew well in my business that died,” he said as the loss was truly harrowing, adding, “He deserved better.”
