And now for something completely different.

Long, long ago, in my previous life as a weekly music columnist in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., I used to spend many enjoyable hours talking about music in that college town’s clubs and main record store. One of the hot debate topics, over and over again: Name the greatest rock band of all time.

Note the word “rock” in that equation, as opposed to “pop,” or “blues” or some other adjective.

For most people, the argument came down to an old stand-off — The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones. There were then-young idealists who made the case for The Clash.

I stood firm, arguing for The Who. My primary reasons were that this was a “rock” band (period) and that, as a writer/composer, Pete Townshend always played for higher stakes, in terms of both the personal (wrestling with his own history of abuse as a child in “Tommy”) and the political (turn it up).

Of course, Townshend didn’t die before he got old and he has pulled all of his painful questions, struggles and fears with him. If you have followed The Who over the decades, you know that many of those questions are about (a) the purpose of rock music, (b) his own broken heart, (c) religious faith and (d) all of the above.

I would never argue that Townshend has reached any conclusions about this equation. However, it is fascinating and poignant to watch his struggles, on behalf of his generation. With that in mind, let’s turn to an amazing interview in The New York Times Sunday Magazine that ran with this headline: “The Who’s Pete
Townshend grapples with rock’s legacy, and his own dark past.” (This interview is also being read in the context of the usual Townshend-esque media storm about another interview, with Rolling Stone.)

So why bring this subject up at a blog about religion-news content? Well, toward the end a major ghost pops into view, one that probably deserved a follow-up question or two. What we need now is a Townshend interview conducted by former rock-beat scribe (and GetReligion writer) Dawn Eden Goldstein, author of “Sunday Will Never Be the Same: A Rock & Roll Journalist Opens Her Ears to God.”

Let’s walk into the crucial material with a sampling of Townshend talking (with David Marchese) about rock music and his generation. We will get to eternity in a moment.

Insofar as we’re now able to look back at the rock era as a completed thing, what do you see you and your peers as having achieved? 

There’s a subset of living musicians who are trying to carry whatever it was they garnered from the era of LSD, the Vietnam War and the decline of the Vietnam War through to the present. Joni Mitchell is still carrying it. Neil Young is carrying it. David Byrne is carrying it. Brian Eno is carrying it. We’re carrying what we each decided to share of the load. And what is the load? The load was this massive question.

Which is what? 

The massive question was: Who are we? What is our function? What is our worth? Are we disenfranchised, or are we able to take society over and guide it? Are we against the establishment? Are we being used by it? Are we artists, or are we entertainers?

Is there an honest reading other than a pessimist’s for what the answers to most of those questions ended up being? 

I think so. Rock ’n’ roll was a celebration of congregation. A celebration of irresponsibility. 

As you can see, the maestro of The Who is — as he has in the past — openly addressing the fact that, for many people, rock music became a kind of religion or substitute spirituality that was supposed to help provide hope and even guidance to help make the world a better place.

Rock stars were supposed to be prophets or even substitute messiahs. To do this, that could mean that rock music would undercut the power of another institution.

Read on:

You alluded earlier to rock’s failure to finish what it set out to do, whatever that was. How much was your audience — baby boomers — complicit in that failure?

It was a parallel experience for the musicians and their audience. 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. It didn’t work out that way. We abandoned our parents’ church, and we haven’t replaced it with anything solid and substantial. …

So what happens when life rolls on, past the tragedies, the years of ordinary failure and moments of success that turn out to be less than they seemed to be?

Also, what about the broken parts of life in which a person either sins or is sinned against? What happens when the sins of the fathers and mothers are visited on the sons and daughters?

In other words, what happens when you die AFTER you get old?

You’re aware of where “Tommy” came from, and yet you still keep coming back to it. Is that about catharsis? 

I’m working something out. The Who perform a piece of “Tommy” onstage, but we don’t do the violent stuff. And, remember, “Tommy” ends with a prayer. A secular prayer to the universe celebrating the spirit of life, the value of suffering, the transformation of suffering into joy. And it’s a death, a hopeful transformation. I wish I were in Tommy’s shoes, in a joyful moment of waking up one day and disappearing into dust. I’m not quite there, and I don’t know whether I will get there. I’ve been waiting, and I’m pushing 75.

Are you saying that you’re wishing for a graceful death? Or that your death might have some larger meaning? 

A hopeful transformation is what I wish for at the end of my life. I would be comfortable with wherever it was. Whether it would be turning to dust or falling into the hands of astral angels or finding myself at the gates of heaven and being turned away.

Read it all.

For a moment, forget about the Baby Boomers. Think of Townshend as the world’s oldest “none.”

Any questions?