Pete Townshend Discusses His New Audible Original Memoir, the Who Going Back on Tour, and Why He Can Still Swing His Arm

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticWho’s introspective? Pete Townshend is, in a new two-hour release from Audible that is effectively a casual audio sequel to his formal autobiography, 2012’s “Who I Am.” The part-talking, part-rocking project, “Somebody Saved Me,” which came out Friday, is an Audible Original that’s essential listening for anyone who cares about the Who, which is a demographic that has a pretty substantial overlap with people who care about rock ‘n’ roll generally.In the 27th installation of Audible’s laudable “Words + Music” series, the Who’s songwriter and guitarist goes deeper into what he calls the Who’s “middle age,” a period that’s bookended roughly by the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 on one end and the equally sudden passing of John Entwistle in 2002, a time frame he admits he didn’t deal with as much as he could have in his book.

Townshend talks about the band’s on-again, off-again status in the wake of those tragedies and why he and singer Roger Daltrey ultimately carried on in both cases, even as the band’s main creative force has not been shy about sometimes preferring the less lucrative benefits of his solo career over dealing with the band legacy decades on.

The audio mini-memoir — which also includes his present-day remakes of 10 favorite tracks from those years (including “Eminence Front,” “You Better You Bet” and “Let My Love Open the Door”) — concludes with Townshend weighing the current touring routine the band is settled into this year and sounding surprisingly at peace with the Who taking on an inspirational, valedictory role in 2022. (The link to hear the full two-hour Audible Original can be found here: audible.com/SomebodySavedMe.) Variety talked with.