Tonight we have a true classic in every sense of the word for our third installment of the rock and roll showcase known as The Midnight Special. There were several epic albums released during the 1970s and some may argue that The Who's 1971 album entitled Who's Next was the cream of the crop. The first track on that album was a little song called Baba O'Riley which many fans erroneously believe is actually called Teenage Wasteland.
I would poke fun but I actually thought that was what it was called that for years.
So why is the song called Baba O'Riley? We will get to that in a moment.
Back in the day I had something that I now refer to as 'The Tape'. Don't let the fact that I named it confuse you, it's simply a cassette tape that I recorded some songs from a Los Angeles classic rock station. As you may imagine Baba O'Riley was one of those songs along with Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, and the Rolling Stone's Emotional Rescue. I often refer to that tape as the foundation of my love for classic rock.
Let's travel back to 1975 for an awesome live performance of Baba O'Riley.
Now some history:
Townshend originally wrote "Baba O'Riley" for his Lifehouse project, a rock opera intended as the follow-up to the Who's 1969 opera, Tommy. In Lifehouse a Scottish farmer named Ray would have sung the song at the beginning as he gathered his wife Sally and his two children to begin their exodus to London. When Lifehouse was scrapped, eight of the songs were salvaged and recorded for the Who's 1971 album Who's Next, with "Baba O'Riley" as the lead-off track.
According to Townshend, at the end of the band's gig at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival the field was covered in rubbish left by fans, which inspired the line "teenage wasteland". In another interview Townshend stated the song was also inspired by "the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where audience members were strung out on acid and 20 people had brain damage. The irony was that some listeners took the song to be a teenage celebration: 'Teenage Wasteland, yes! We're all wasted!'"
The song's title combines the names of Meher Baba and Terry Riley, two of Townshend's philosophical and musical mentors. The song is often incorrectly referred to as "Teenage Wasteland", due to these oft-repeated words in the song's chorus refrain. "Teenage Wasteland" was in fact a working title for the song in its early incarnations as part of the Lifehouse project, but eventually became the title for a different but related song by Townshend, which is slower and features different lyrics. A demo of "Teenage Wasteland" features in Lifehouse Chronicles, a six-disc set of music related to the Lifehouse project, and in several Townshend compilations and videos. - Wiki
Here is your bonus video of The Bargain, which is actually the second track from Who's Next.
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Nice add on, I call that a Bargain.
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