The artist Pete Townshend said made changed rock music forever: “He opened the door”
Rock and roll was always meant to be in a state of change. No genre can play the same chords forever, hoping that the next generation keeps the candle burning for years to come. Pete Townshend may have helped break down doors with The Who’s early singles, but compared to his own contributions, he believed Bob Dylan had the potential to make the Earth move.
Of course, that’s somewhat strange, considering Dylan’s start as a humble folk singer. Sure, he still had a knack for writing exceptional lyrics, but most of his early work didn’t need much more than an acoustic guitar, his voice, and a harmonica to get his point across. Once people started listening to what he had to say, they realised that this was a poet talking about the way the world looks through his eyes.
Across an album like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, he pulls none of his punches when it comes to the changes that needed to happen in the world. ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ was the reassurance that things were going to get be okay, but songs like ‘Masters of War’ were bold declarations to those who run the bloodshed in the world, complete with an ominous warning about how they will be treated in the next life.
If someone like that could move people’s souls with just an acoustic guitar, then hopping on the rock and roll train gave him a power no one could have imagined. The minute that he strapped on an electric guitar, Dylan garnered as much praise as he did ridicule, but no one could deny that a track like ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ was one of his best works. This was the sound of someone playing against his strengths as the voice of a generation, and he had no intention of stopping when it came time to speak his mind.
While Townshend would have loved to see what Dylan was really about behind closed doors, he was more than happy to settle for the image in his mind, saying, “I still love the earlier stuff for the pure nostalgia of remembering how stimulating he was; but he wasn’t quite the gladiator I had expected. You can’t deny, though, that Dylan’s music marked a new dimension in rock ‘n’ roll. He opened the door for rock to say bigger and better things.”
Though a handful of Who songs do fit neatly into the Dylan mould, Townshend wasn’t just looking to ride his idol’s coattails. Dylan had just shown people what could be done with the written word in a rock context, and if he had the power to change the world when he spoke, Townshend was going to use his own format to take his listeners on a journey when making Tommy.
That’s not to say there isn’t a little bit of influence in the way Townshend constructs his guitar parts. As much as he has his unique sound when he picks up an electric, his fingerpicking style on tracks like ‘Sunrise’ off of The Who Sell Out or ‘I’m One’ from Quadrophenia is the result of someone listening to ‘Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right’.
The guitarist eventually helped people understand themselves, just like Dylan did, but it wasn’t always about the raw noise. Looking back on it, Dylan taught us to listen rather than just hear, and the rest of The Who’s repertoire was about exploring what happens when you listen beyond the power chords.
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