The Who’s legendary guitarist Pete Townshend admitted that the band’s most iconic song, “My Generation,” became “a burden.”
“I hate playing it,” Townshend, 79, confessed on the Tuesday, March 25, episode of the “Switched on Pop” podcast.
“My Generation” defined an era of 1960s rebellion with its proto-heavy metal sound and blistering lyrics from Townshend, where he declared, “I hope I die before I get old.”
Townshend reflected on the impact of “My Generation” during his podcast interview, admitting its swaggering style impeded The Who in the long run.
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“Well, I think for the band members, for me and the band members, it became a burden,” he said. “We were still playing it as our closing song in our late 20s. It felt to us that the conversation was over.”
The musician went on, “When we first went to New York in 1967, there were kids who were being called up for Vietnam, but the Vietnam issue was over and we were still doing ‘My Generation’ on the stage and I was probably smashing guitars and [drummer] Keith Moon was still smashing his drums up and we were still doing that in ’68.”
The setlist eventually began to change. “After we started performing [1969 rock opera] Tommy, we would close the show with [‘See Me, Feel Me’], but if there was a desire for an encore, we would end up playing ‘Summertime Blues’ and then follow up with ‘My Generation’ and smash a guitar or whatever it was that we were doing at the time,” he added. “There were long periods where we would try to not do that. My explanations of why I was doing it were not being accepted.”
Townshend acknowledged that his frustrations with “My Generation” only increased over time, especially since fans expected to hear the song at every show.
“We didn’t want to keep playing it at the end of the show,” he conceded. “And I have to say, [Roger Daltrey, The Who’s singer] and I did a couple of shows for Teen Cancer recently at the Royal Albert Hall and we played ‘My Generation’ and I hate playing it. It’s difficult to play. It changes key a lot and I don’t have that great, big, huge stage sound that I used to have when I was young.”
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“My Generation” was hugely controversial at the time of its release in 1965, with the BBC initially refusing to play it on the radio because Daltrey’s stuttering vocals were deemed offensive to actual stutterers.
The track’s anthemic message became popular anyway, forcing the BBC to rescind its ban and let “My Generation” back onto the charts. It ultimately reached No. 2 on the U.K. single chart in 1965, though it only hit No. 74 in the U.S.
Speaking about the song ban on “Switched on Pop,” Townshend contrasted how he dealt with the controversy to the way contemporaries like The Beatles often refused to address serious topics in their early years.
“When you look at early interviews with The Beatles, what they did is every time they were asked a serious question, they made a joke,” he noted. “I tried to answer questions seriously, but I knew there were subjects I had to stay away from. I would have defended myself really quite valiantly on the stuttering. It wasn’t meant to be a piss-take about people stuttering. It was meant to be that I grew up in this group of boys who took so much amphetamines that they couldn’t speak.”
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The Who last performed at the Teenage Cancer Trust benefit in March 2024, where “My Generation” was part of a set jam-packed with their 1960s and ‘70s hits.
Townshend and Daltrey will reunite at this year’s Teenage Cancer Trust concert on Thursday, March 27, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The duo will be supported by Level 42, who had hits with 1985’s “Something About You” and 1986’s “Lessons in Love.”
