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" I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually, rather than just reflecting society or something called 'rock and roll.' "

Pete Townshend

Elegance

Society

Mirror

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" Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre. "

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" I used to try and make up visually for what I couldn't play as a musician. I used to get into very incredible visual things where, in order just to make one chord more lethal, I'd make it a really lethal looking thing, whereas really it's just going to be picked normally. "

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Going

Try

" I felt that The Who had ended because we'd lost touch with our original Shepherd's Bush audience. "

" In order to have faith, or follow any other organized religion, I'd have to suspend a degree of disbelief. "

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Religion

Organized

" When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar. "

" When I grew up, what was interesting for me was that music was color and life was gray. So music for me has always been more than entertainment. "

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Color

Interesting

" It's like the mod thing is happening again. "

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Happening

Thing

" It's sad when people break up. "

" For a while I was perfectly happy not performing with 'The Who.' From 1982 to 1989 I felt 'The Who' did not exist. I let the band go, in my heart. However, Roger Daltrey had other ideas. He would not let go. "

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Band

Happy

" It wasn't just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance. "

" What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive. "

" I bought a Dutch barge and turned it into a recording studio. My plan was to go to Paris and record rolling down the Seine. "

" The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage. "

" But what was interesting about what the Who did is that we took things which were happening in the pop genre and represent them to people so that they see them in a new way. I think the best example is Andy Warhol's work, the image of Marilyn Monroe or the Campbell's soup can. "

" I have to say that anger is the blanket that comes around me, and that blunts and blurs my sense of proportion. "

" What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say. "

" It's an ordinary day for Brian. Like, he died every day, you know. "

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Brian

Day

" Although I dig my guitar playing, I think it's kind of an obvious situation; I play what I want to play within my own restrictions. "

" Everything that I had done creatively related to two or three incidents that happened to me when I was a child that I'd forgotten. Everything, absolutely everything. "

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Child

Everything

" I needed to give back, give back, give back. I felt guilty about my success. I felt uncomfortable about how easily I had been delivered this extraordinary life that I had. "

" I only really started to go to plays and to be interested in drama 20 years ago when as an artist I was already well-rounded. I think I'm more disciplined today. "

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Drama

Think

" What theatre started to look at much earlier than any other form was the internal operations of ordinary people, sometimes using mythic models in order to tell the story. "

" I don't really know any other musicians like me. I grew up backstage with my dad who played in a post-war dance band, so I always feel at home at a venue. "

" He is the king. If it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble', I would have never picked up a guitar. "

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King

Never

" I'm only interested in rites of passage stories. "

" I want to age with some dignity. "

" What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh. "

" In a sense, the god we trust politically is a slightly different god than the one we bring into the fray when we enter a rock concert. One of the things I can say with absolute conviction is that I worship that god. "