Bob Dylan and Pete Townshend met up at Desert Trip. Townshend: “I asked Bob Dylan why he does so many gigs. He told me, ‘I’m a folk singer. A folk singer is only as good as his memory, and my memory is going.’ He’s doing it to keep his memory alive.”
Pete Townshend speaks about Bob Dylan and Amnesty International
How often do you work on new songs these days?
Every day. I just don’t do what Dylan does. I don’t drag myself around the world, and I don’t put out an album every six weeks [laughs]. But I’ve got loads of songs. I’m working on a big project at the moment, which might be half rock opera, half art installation. I don’t know where it’s going to go. I’m going to start with a book. I don’t want to talk too much about that now.I’m also working on old songs, going right from the beginning. I missed a few songs at the very beginning — gave tapes to producers to listen to and never got them back. But from “My Generation” onwards, I’ve got tapes of every single song I ever wrote, and the supporting paperwork. Sometimes they’re silly little scraps and sometimes quite more. It’s interesting to go back. But I’m always working on new stuff as well, so I don’t have that feeling that I’m always luxuriating in the past.
Pete Townshend sing Bob Dylan’s “Corrina, Corrina”
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