The Who's Roger Daltrey Reflects on Death: 'I'm Ready to Go at Any Time'

Roger Daltrey says he’d be content if his song was over.

The Who lead singer, 79, revealed in a new interview with The Times, that he has thought about his own death and legacy — especially after he became seriously ill with viral meningitis in 2015 — and he’s “ready” for what comes next.

“My dreams came true so, listen, I’m ready to go at any time. My family are all great and all taken care of,” Daltrey told the U.K. outlet.

“You’ve got to be realistic,” he added. “You can’t live your life forever. Like I said, people my age, we’re in the way. There are no guitar strings to be changed on this old instrument.”

The musician also noted that he thought TV presenter Esther Rantzen, who has stage 4 lung cancer, was “incredibly brave to raise the subject” of assisted dying after she joined the nonprofit organization Dignitas, which provides physician-assisted deaths to terminally ill patients.

Daltrey said he’s “thought about it" himself.

“If I became a burden on everyone, I’d consider [assisted dying],” he explained. “A good friend of mine — a lovely woodsman called Tom — he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. If I had stage 4 pancreatic cancer I wouldn’t have chemo. I’d take the morphine and go down.”

Daltrey previously shared his feelings on death in a 2021 interview with End Well, where he described “letting go” after he became really sick and then feeling as if he was “wrapped in a cotton ball.” He said the experience made him not afraid of death.

“I don’t mind. I don’t mind the next bit. It’s gonna be an adventure like the last bit,” he said.

In March, Daltrey revealed in an interview with NME that he and bandmate Pete Townshend are likely done in the recording studio after having released a dozen studio albums.

"What's the point?" Daltrey told the outlet with a laugh. "What's the point of records? We released an album four years ago, and it did nothing. It's a great album too, but there isn't the interest out there for new music these days."

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He and Townshend released WHO in 2019, which was their first new material in 13 years. While the album was received favorably by critics and reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart, it failed to make waves like their previous records Who's Next and Tommy did in the 1960s and 1970s.

He said he believes fans are most passionate about The Who's earlier recordings, and that when he and Townshend tour, they try to give the people what they want.

"People want to hear the old music. I don't know why, but that's the fact," he explained. "[Our fanbase ranges] from 80 years old, all the way down to 8 years old. We've got quite a lot of young people in our audience these days. It's quite interesting that they're picking up on our music."