I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.

Most of my songs are about Jesus. Most of my songs are about the idea that there is salvation, and that there is a Savior. But I won't mention his name in a song just to get a cheap play.

In the midnight of a soul's unsleeping, hear the waterfall of women weeping. Hear the distant noise of traffic stalling, hear the prostituted children calling.

What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh...Songwriting is best. It's the hardest-finest-tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually, rather than just reflecting society or something called 'rock and roll.'

I'm an air-conditioned gypsy.

The Who is now a brand, not a band; but it is a brand that is upheld by its audience, not an industry or a cynical moneymaking machine.