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Another song written as a joke?

40 years ago today (May 23rd,1979) and 10 years to the day after Tommy was released in Britain (May 23rd, 1969), The Who documentary The Kids Are Alright premiered in New York. The Who song “Long Live Rock” was an attempt at a Chuck Berry parody that Pete Townshend calls “not a very good song.” It was on Odds and Sods in 1974, the single in 1979 accompanying release of the movie The Kids Are Alright. Pete Townshend wrote “Long Live Rock” as part of a conceptual project he started that never got off the ground called Rock Is Dead, Long Live Rock.

“It’s not a very good song, really. I mean, it’s a Chuck Berry parody and Chuck does his own parodies, doesn’t he? His work is a parody of itself in a sense. It’s a continuing revisiting of the same original great idea, which will last forever.”

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