The 'French Grasshopper' Interview

[Frate, Chris (Indust, PTL)]

Just my two cents to beat this dead horse:

Pete has a special gift, which is the ability to write songs, and to
write great songs. Unfortunately, everyone's gifts change over time. In
the early days, musical ideas just flew out of his head and the boys in
the band hopped onboard. He inspired them and they inspired him with the
way they played his songs, but that kind of inspiration slows after a
while. I think history has shown that 90% of great pop songwriters don't
matter much after the age of 40. Couple this with Pete's sensitivity to
what the audience wants and not wanting to let us down, and his
"artistic" temperament that sometimes makes him overanalyze what he's
doing, and it just seems lucky that we ever got any songs at all from
him for The Who.

The new album would have been better with John, because John was a
better bass player than Pino or Pete, and he added amazing
countermelodies to Pete's songs. That said, you can't blame Pete for
having a mental block about writing for The Who while John was alive
anymore than you can blame Bob Feller for losing his fastball as he got
older. We are born with gifts; some of us never find them, some of us
never hone them, most of us can't control them, but even those of us
that use them to the utmost find that they change over time.

-Chris in Cleveland, amateur philosopher

-----Original Message-----
From: thewho-bounces at igtc.com [mailto:thewho-bounces at igtc.com] On Behalf
Of Jim M
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 10:31 AM
To: The Who Mailing List
Subject: Re: The 'French Grasshopper' Interview

----- Original Message ----- From: <JOELTLE515 at aol.com>
>
> unfair that entwistle had to die first and THEN give pete the 
> inspiration to go ahead with a new who album as oppose to releasing 
> one, say, in 2002 or 2001. I for one think it would've made a better 
> album. I know some may disagree with me on that, but it's just what I 
> think.

Ernie, you (and others) are talking about a hypothetical album that you
feel Pete *should* have been able to make.  You ignore  Pete's
assertion, in the recent interview I mentioned, that those kind of
expectations are what kept them for making an album for 20 years in the
first place.  In fact, you don't ignore that issue, you *prove* it.  The
album would have been "better".  It would have been more "Who like."
Well, *that* album, the one that many imagined Pete was withholding from
us, didn't exist.  It simply wasn't in him.  What we got was Endless
Wire...and I love it.  I say I'd have gotten more albums like that if so
many fans weren't clinging stubbornly to what The Who *used* to be for
so long.  So there!

Jim M 

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