Creativity Quote by John Entwistle

Chaos, in John Entwistle's telling, isn’t an accident to be cleaned up in rehearsal; it’s the point. The line reads like a backstage confession from a band that understood rock not as a museum piece to be replicated nightly, but as a live-wire negotiation between control and risk. When he says “whole sections of stuff that are free form,” he’s describing a deliberate booby trap: a structure built to destabilize the very people inside it. “So that they don’t know what we are doing next” isn’t just about keeping the audience on its toes; it’s about keeping the band from sleepwalking through its own hits.

Entwistle’s subtext is almost philosophical, and very practical. Rock performance can calcify into a product: same set, same cues, same solos, applause on schedule. Free-form passages function like an escape hatch from that deadening professionalism. They force real listening. They turn virtuosity into responsiveness rather than flash. That’s why “fun” lands as a loaded word here: fun as danger, as the thrill of nearly losing the thread and finding it again.

The context is crucial: Entwistle is speaking from within a group (The Who) famous for volatility, volume, and the sense that the song might combust mid-flight. His bass work often acted as both anchor and antagonist, a melodic engine that could hold shape while everything else threatened to break apart. “You are playing something that you haven’t ever played before” isn’t mere improvisation; it’s a claim about authenticity. The most “real” moment is the one that can’t be repeated.