Pete Townshend Says His Beef With Daltrey Was Elaborate Hoax

Pete Townshend said on his In The Attic webcast yesterday that he intentionally exaggerated his squabble with Roger Daltrey. On his website, Townshend criticized Daltrey for not supporting the Who's webcasts of their recent live shows. But now Townshend says that he was just trying to distract people from the fact that the webcasts — which cost $10 a pop, to benefit charity — didn't make much money.

"When I went to talk to Roger about it we agreed that the best thing to do is to distract attention from the whole thing by having a public row," said Townshend on his video webcast, "So we're having a public row." Townshend also mentioned our Rock & Roll Daily item: "My diary postings were reproduced in part on Rolling Stone magazine for heavens sake!" he said, "There's a journalist there that can pick up the phone to me. Why do they want to rip off what I'm saying on a website diary?"

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Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

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