Pete Townshend has said that The Rolling Stones inspired The Who's 1966 single 'Substitute', in an excerpt from his upcoming autobiography 'Who He', which he's posted on his blog site. Explaining the effect that listening to the Stones' 1966 hit '19th nervous Breakdown' had on him, he wrote: "My song began as homage to Smokey Robinson inspired by The Rolling Stones".
He also implied that he was open to collaborating with Mick Jagger, saying: "You know, he's asked me to work on several records with him and I've very much enjoyed doing it. But he's never suggested that we write together. His ex-wife Jerry used to say all the time, 'You and Pete should write together.' And we would kind of go, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. It may happen, it may not'".