Townshend Sees Rock and Roll as a System of Spirituality

The New York Times Dec. 1, 2019 Sunday Magazine has an interview with Pete Townshend, leader of "The Who," in which Townshend is pressed to explain what rock and roll was all about now that it is apparently widely considered to be dead.

After dodging and weaving for a while, Townshend finally comes out with the following:

"What we were hoping to do was to create a system by which we gathered in order to hear music that in some way served the spiritual needs of the audience."

When one reads, endlessly it seems, about Woodstock and why people went, that quote resonates.

But, Townshend continued: "It didn't work out that way. We abandoned our parents' church, and we haven't replaced it with anything solid and substantial."

Despite that, he himself hasn't given up hope.

"I do still believe in it," he said.