John Lennon's Coolness to Pete Townshend

Go troll elsewhere, please!

 

Doesn't sound like John said much bad in interviews, who cares if he was a bit cold to him?

 

Well, except that he's wrong about that Paul was a terrific bassist, Ringo was perfect for the band just as Moon was for The Who and ageorge improved as a guitarist. Ironically Lenmon was probably the poorest musician but as a rhythm guitarist he could help drive the band.

 

Very hard being that good and not being the best. Must hurt Keith knows too

 

Someone says something less than complementary about The Beatles and out come the pitchforks. Grow up guys

 

Who knows what went on in Lennon's head. It's also a sure way to have a thread go on for hundreds of posts if it's in anyway critical of The Beatles.

Townshend like anyone is entitled to his opinion. The backing tracks WERE flippin' lousy, btw.

 

I remember reading that in Rolling Stone like it was yesterday, I love that interview ha.

 

Sounds like jealousy to me.

 

Maybe Pete was actually onto the Herman's Hermits awesome records because many of them are.

 

I'm a huge Pete fan, but weren't the Who primarily a pop singles band in the 60's? Songs like Happy Jack, I Can't Explain, Kids Are Alright, Magic Bus, Substitute, I'm A Boy, Dogs, etc aren't exactly a million miles removed from Hermans Hermits. A little bit louder, sure, but pretty much in a similar vein.

 

McCartney was inspired to write Helter Skelter by a review of I Can See For Miles that he read in Melody Maker. He had not heard the song... it was the description in the review which inspired him. Over time his memories faded and got confused, and he gradually started getting details wrong when he recounted the story, mistakenly saying it was a Townshend interview he'd read, and coming up with that "loudest, dirtiest" comment which was not actually in the record review.

 

I think Pete was trolling when he said the Beatles were comperable to Herman's Hermits. I used to be a fan, but I'm so over it. The shameless selling out of his own music to commercials, and every CSI show. He obviously does not respect his own music, so why should I??
But I still begrudgingly love "Empty Glass"...

 

I can't come up with a bunch of examples on the fly, but I think that it's not at all unusual for musicians to listen to a completely different kind of music for pleasure than that which they compose themselves. To John, Elvis and the other 50's rockers were It, and he'd be ashamed to give the impression that he thought he was in their league. If he were here he'd probably tell you that he did stuff like "Strawberry Fields" because he couldn't have done what Elvis did because he just wasn't up to it.

 

I think it's likely that Pete Townshend was a really flash, arrogant S.O.B. when the Who were new and Lennon probably picked up on that and therefore was not inclined to be friendly to him.

 

Very unlikely. John would be awestruck by Elvis Berry Killer and some of the Motown guys he loved, but not his contemporaries who he would have thought were beneath The Beatles

 

Well I think he liked Dylan

 

Dylan would be one exception

 

Lennon mentions The Rolling Stones and The Searchers in the early days. He liked The Kinks- Wonderboy, also liked The Move. Don't know about
The Small Faces or THe WHo.

 

He also ripped on Dylan in the later years with "Serve Yourself" and the parodies...

John Lennon- News of the Day (Parody of Bob Dylan):

 

Over here, we'd say 'frostiness'.

 

Now that I'm in front of a keyboard rather than a tablet, and can cut and paste, I'll add to what I wrote above...

Here's McCartney's November 1968 account of how "Helter Skelter" was written:
"Umm, that came about just 'cuz I'd read a review of a record which said, 'And this group really got us wild, there's echo on everything, they're screaming their heads off.' And I just remember thinking, 'Oh, it'd be great to do one. Pity they've done it. Must be great-- really screaming record.' And then I heard their record and it was quite straight, and it was very sort of sophisticated. It wasn't rough and screaming and tape echo at all. So I thought, 'Oh well, we'll do one like that, then.' And I had this song called 'Helter Skelter' which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise."

And here's what his story had evolved into by 1995:
"I was in Scotland and I read in Melody Maker that Pete Townshend had said: 'We've just made the raunchiest, loudest, most ridiculous rock 'n' roll record you've ever heard.' I never actually found out what track it was that The Who had made, but that got me going; just hearing him talk about it. So I said to the guys, 'I think we should do a song like that; something really wild.' And I wrote Helter Skelter."

It stands to reason that the earlier version of the story is the accurate one, since it was told just months after the song was written, when McCartney's memory was still fresh. In addition, no one has ever found any interview with Townshend (in Melody Maker or Guitar Player or anywhere else) where he described "I Can See For Miles" (or any other Who song) with those terms. But Chris Welch's October 1967 review of "I Can See For Miles" in Melody Maker does indeed seem to fit McCartney's 1968 description of the review he read:
"In a town without end, with a moon that never sets, there is a fire burning. It is the fire of The Who, once thought diminished or dying, but obviously glowing with that renewed heat. Forget Happy Jack sitting in sand on the Isle of Man, this marathon epic of swearing cymbals and cursing guitars marks the return of The Who as a major freakout force. Recorded in America, it's a Pete Townshend composition filled with Townshend mystery and menace, and delivered by the emphatic Mr. Roger Daltrey. Nobody could deceive him because there is magic in his eyes and he can see for miles. And The Who are going to see their way back into the chart."

I can see how McCartney could have read that review and thought the song being described was louder and more raucous than it actually was.

 

Pete was in awe of Revolver ( not Ray Davies). Hey, the fabs get a namecheck in "The Seeker".

 

John had a chip on his shoulder that was bigger than his feet.

 

How about "John could pretty much be a jerk on any given day, and didn't like to give credit where credit is due", and "Pete could pretty much be a jerk on any given day, and didn't like to give credit where credit is due?" End of thread.

 

The Seeker kind of puts down all its name checks though.

In trying to reconstruct history here, it's reasonable I think that Pete ticked off John with that early comment on British tv. The bands then didn't do that kind of thing, they would speak of professional respect, one of the Beatles album covers says that of one of the girl groups the band covered. To say that the Beatles backing tracks were lousy was provocative and just not right, as history has more than assured the Beatles legacy.

John knew Pete was in the very top rank of British rock and not to have drink with him - he could have had tea - is telling IMO.