{"id":424757,"date":"2026-01-23T09:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424757\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T09:53:08","slug":"the-who-songs-roger-daltrey-and-pete-townshend-despise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424757\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who songs Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend despise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Flickr)<\/p>\n

Fri 23 January 2026 7:51, UK <\/p>\n

The Who<\/a> are one of the most consequential rock bands of their era, and made history in many ways. A vital part of the classic rock landscape, alongside countrymen and brothers in arms The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, they led the British cultural and musical invasion of America in the 1960s to a world-changing effect.<\/p>\n

From their era-defining hits like \u2018My Generation\u2019, to the claim that they invented the Barre chord and all of the destruction they left in their wake \u2013 not to mention the iconic Lincoln Continental submerged in a hotel swimming pool<\/a> \u2013 The Who\u2019s legacy is so stellar that they continue to be regarded as one of the finest out there. They have been cited as an inspiration by everyone from The Stooges to Oasis and even emos Panic! At The Disco.<\/p>\n

With over 240 songs to their name, in their heyday, the group were one of the most prolific out there, selling over 100million records and earning much critical acclaim. However, despite the immense heights that the group have hit, due to the sheer number of tracks they have, there are some that the band \u2013 now comprised of frontman Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend \u2013 hate.<\/p>\n

A mixture of classics and lesser-known releases, it seems unfathomable that The Who\u2019s creative figureheads would loathe some of their work so intensely, but when you hear their reasons, things start to make sense. <\/p>\n

The truth is, while the band may have found their footing in the 1960s, a decade apparently more renowned for its love-spreading than anything else, at the core of The Who was always a fractious element that seemed capable of chewing up that sentiment and spitting it out. The band were successful quite quickly, but rarely have they been a happy entity. <\/p>\n

For the most part, this was seemingly down to the group\u2019s inability to be friendly to one another. Daltrey, especially, seemed to be a caustic force within the band, finding himself irritating Keith Moon, famously fist-fighting with the drummer after flushing his stash, and nearly coming to blows every night on tour with Townshend. But while Daltrey was an irritant to some of the group, like a drop of bleach in the bathwater, Townshend was that same bath made only with boiling water. <\/p>\n

With this kind of concoction, there is perhaps little surprise that they would also hate some of their own songs. The only unlikely thing is that some of the songs the two main men pick might be considered their best. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The Who as bright young things at the start of their career. (Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)The Who songs Roger Daltrey hates:\u2018Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u2019\u2018The Seeker\u2019\u2018Music Must Change\u2019It\u2019s Hard <\/p>\n

When speaking to Rolling Stone<\/a> in 2018, Roger Daltrey \u2013 a man who is known for his penchant for hot takes \u2013 revealed that he hates one of The Who\u2019s best-loved hits\u20141971\u2019s \u2018Won\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u2019, from the classic album Who\u2019s Next. Most likely due to it being a staple of the band\u2019s sets for nearly 50 years at the time of the conversation, he explained that it is the only song he\u2019s \u201cbored shitless\u201d with. Daltrey said: \u201cThat\u2019s the only song I\u2019m bloody bored shitless with. I don\u2019t know why, but I\u2019m being honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following drummer Keith Moon\u2019s untimely death in 1978<\/a>, The Who carried on working until 1982, a period that is one of their most derided by fans. The group reunited in 1985 for the charity bonanza that was Live Aid after organiser Bob Geldof implored them to \u201cplay the fucking show\u201d to raise money for the children starving in the Ethiopian famine. <\/p>\n

Whilst it was a relatively good performance, the differences between Daltrey and Townshend were becoming more pronounced. This meant that during the show, the frontman used the opportunity to air his frustration about 1982\u2019s It\u2019s Hard, the group\u2019s last album from the decade. \u201cIt\u2019s Hard should never have been released,\u201d Daltrey boomed. \u201cI had huge rows with Pete. I said, \u2018Pete, this is just a complete piece of shit and it should never come out.’\u201d <\/p>\n

In the same 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Daltrey once again expressed his disdain for It\u2019s Hard, but did name one track he thinks is great. He said: \u201cAt the time, I didn\u2019t like It\u2019s Hard. I think there are some great tracks on it. \u2018Cry if You Want\u2019 is a great track. I think it was a little over-produced, a bit cleaned up. But there were some things that were quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, speaking to Uncut<\/a> in 2015, Daltrey disclosed his lifelong disdain for 1971\u2019s non-album single, \u2018The Seeker\u2019. He said: \u201cI was never ever fond of \u2018The Seeker\u2019. To sing that song, to me, was like trying to push an elephant up the stairs. I found it cumbersome, the first song we\u2019d ever done where I thought, \u2018Nah, this is pretentious.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The final track on the list is \u2018Music Must Change\u2019, from 1978\u2019s Who Are You, the last album to feature the band\u2019s drummer Keith Moon before his death only three weeks after its release. Daltrey hates the song because he believes it is cursed and, therefore, refuses to play it live. Speaking to Howard Stern in 2015, he revealed: \u201cThere is one, and I won\u2019t ever play it again. There\u2019s a song on the Who Are You album, it\u2019s called \u2018Music Must Change\u2019. Every time we played that in the studio, Keith couldn\u2019t play the drums to it. It was in a three, four. Keith couldn\u2019t play normal drums. Keith could play great Moon drums, and that was it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, as Moon couldn\u2019t play the track, they enlisted a session drummer. Yet, because of his death\u2019s close proximity to the session and release of the album, for Daltrey, \u2018Music Must Change\u2019 serves as a painful reminder not only of the tragedy but also brings back intense feelings of regret about recruiting another drummer instead of his friend. Incredibly, the curse of the song doesn\u2019t finish there either.<\/p>\n

Daltrey continued: \u201cWe played the song when we got back together with Kenny Jones as drummer, and then we dropped it for a long, long time. We brought it back in 2002 for the last tour with John Entwistle, and we rehearsed it, we were going to do it in the show, then John died.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Who songs Pete Townshend hates:\u2018Pinball Wizard\u2019\u2018Dreaming From The Waist\u2019\u2018Sister Disco\u2019<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just Roger Daltrey who hates one of The Who\u2019s best-loved efforts. Pete Townshend intensely dislikes \u2018Pinball Wizard\u2019, one of the highlights of the band\u2019s 1969 rock opera, Tommy, a song he penned. <\/p>\n

Townshend later admitted that he wrote the song to impress journalist Nik Cohn, who had given the band negative reviews. As well as being an influential music critic, Cohn was a well-known pinball lover. Townshend shallowly directed the track at the writer to gain some favourable reviews. Since being first performed in 1969, it has been undertaken at most Who shows, which compounds his feelings toward it. <\/p>\n

Describing the song\u2019s writing, Townshend once said: \u201cI knocked it off. I thought, \u2018Oh, my God this is awful, the most clumsy piece of writing I\u2019ve ever done. Oh my God, I\u2019m embarrassed. This sounds like a Music Hall song. I scribbled it out and all the verses were the same length and there was no kind of middle eight. It was going to be a complete dud, but I carried on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI attempted the same mock baroque guitar beginning that\u2019s on \u2018I\u2019m a Boy\u2019 and then a bit of vigorous kind of flamenco guitar. I was just grabbing at ideas. I knocked a demo together and took it to the studio, and everyone loved it. Damon Lyon-Shaw (the engineer on Tommy) said, \u2018Pete, that\u2019s a hit.\u2019 Everybody was really excited, and I suddenly thought, \u2018Have I written a hit?\u2019 It was just because the only person that we knew would give us a good review was a pinball fanatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Townshend has stated that he hates \u2018Dreaming From The Waist\u2019 from 1975\u2019s The Who by Numbers. He said: \u201c\u2018Dreaming From The Waist\u2019 is the song I hate more than anything on Earth. In fact, I think I hate it most because it\u2019s a song which Roger used to like to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Remarkably, however, there is another song he hates more than the above; \u2018Sister Disco\u2019 from 1978\u2019s Who Are You. Townshend added: \u201cI think actually \u2018Sister Disco\u2019 qualifies, yeah \u2018Sister Disco\u2019 I hate even more than \u2018Dreaming From The Waist\u2019 because there is a point in which every time we\u2019ve done it where Roger comes over to me, stands next to me and makes some kind of soppy smile, which is supposed to communicate some kind of Everly Brothers relationship we have for the audience, which isn\u2019t actually there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be an act where I\u2019m supposed to collude like \u2018we know each other very well we look like enemies, but we are friends really\u2019 kind of look. Often that will be the moment where I look him in the face and go, \u2018You fucking wanker,\u2019 and he gets angry when I do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Flickr) Fri 23 January 2026 7:51, UK The Who are one of the most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,24218,24216,35357],"class_list":{"0":"post-424757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-pete-townshend","11":"tag-roger-daltrey","12":"tag-the-who"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}