Pete Townshend names the last musician from the 1960s who still “really believes”
In addition to providing the world with some of the greatest music of all time, the 1960s came complete with an idyllic dream of peace, love, and rock and roll, but that belief system didn’t last forever, at least according to The Who’s Pete Townshend.
The Who found themselves in a rather unique position during their 1960s heyday. On one hand, their early masterpieces like ‘My Generation’ helped to pave the way for the kind of defiant, amphetamine-focused rock and roll that would eventually morph into the activism and defiance of the counterculture years.
What’s more, the group had a front row seat to the pinnacle of hippiedom when they headlined Woodstock in 1969, along with the Isle of Wight Festival a year later. On the other hand, though, the band themselves didn’t seem to identify with the age of ‘peace and love’. Famously, in fact, the band members hated their experiences at Woodstock, owing to the mud, the shambles of organisation, and the fact they had to perform to a smattering of spaced-out hippies at silly o’clock in the morning.
Nevertheless, Pete Townshend always maintained a certain respect for those artists who maintained the idyllic dream of the 1960s, even after the vast majority of the artistic realm had moved on. The Who, for instance, spent the 1970s typifying the arena rock sound and striking upon rock opera masterpieces like Quadrophenia, while the likes of Crosby, Stills and Nash remained firmly within the spirit of the counterculture age that first inspired them.
An ardent devotee of that legendary supergroup, Townshend declared in a 1995 interview that their finest asset arrived shortly after the group first formed. “For me, the halcyon years of Crosby, Stills and Nash was when they imported a real human being called Neil Young,” he said. “Once Neil Young was in the band, wow, that was some band. That was a great couple of records they made.”
More impressive than Young’s having contributed to “a great couple of records”, though, is how the songwriter has kept going throughout the years, remaining dedicated to his own strict artistic and ethical principles even while many of his contemporaries have given up. “Neil Young is still out there, Neil Young is the only one left, really,” Townshend shared. “[He] is the only man left who is still out there, his beard growing, doing MTV Unplugged and he believes, you know.”
Seemingly, that inherent belief is something that Townshend, along with a litany of other ageing rockstars, can only dream of. “I’ve got passion while I’m on stage but I don’t know if I really believe the way he believes,” The Who guitarist explained.
Even if The Who weren’t the most ardent supporters of the counterculture years, there is no denying on Townshend’s part that Neil Young remains a continued inspiration. Not only is Young an incredible songwriter, after all, but he has also repeatedly reaffirmed his commitment to what was once called ‘the dream of the 1960s’.
In a rock and roll world in which many of his fellow artists sold out at the first possible opportunity, Neil Young has always stayed true and has always courted the respect of Pete Townshend as a result.
