Who was ‘Baba O’Riley’?
‘Baba O’Riley’ is The Who song you would show somebody if they said they had never heard of The Who. It’s past the point of a hit and is instead a track that completely shrouds itself in legendary status. While there are many different aspects to the song, the introduction makes it stand out, as repeated oscillating notes build an atmosphere ridden by drum and chord hits throughout the track.
What people don’t often realise is that those introductory notes inspired the song title. When you listen to the lyrics, there is no mention of “Baba O’Riley”. Instead, the title of the track comes from a theory that Pete Townshend put in place, which gave rise to those repeated notes that the world is now so familiar with.
At the time of writing ‘Baba O’Riley,’ The Who was working on a sequel to their 1969 hit album, Tommy. It was going to be called Lifehouse, and Townshend was experimenting with the idea of making music through statistics. When he eventually worked out the right way to do this, the sound that emerged centred around two people, Meher Baba and Terry Riley, which in turn inspired the track.
Baba was an Indian spiritual master who greatly influenced Pete Townshend when he was peaking as a creative composer. Townshend had spiritual aspirations, and Baba was able to bring them out in the best of ways. His ability to engage with his inner self led to the creation of some of his biggest hits, and he always saw Meher Baba as a big inspiration.
“Only one person on this Earth is capable of an absolutely perfect love for all and everything,” said Townshend when speaking about his spiritual leader, “And that is, when Earth is fortunate enough to be his illusory host, the Messiah. The Avatar. He just came and went. Meher Baba”.
When Townshend started experimenting with his new way of making music based on statistics instead of emotion, he used Baba’s features to create his first sounds. “For the Lifehouse series of electronic music experiments which involved trying to use statistical information about people to make random music, you put your height and weight and astrological details, the colour of your skin and length of your hair, and [away] you go and you get a piece of music out the back,” said Townshend, explaining how the system worked.
Townshend used Baba’s details to create the intro notes we hear today. However, Baba wasn’t the only inspiration for naming the song and this series of notes. When he listened for the first time, Townshend couldn’t help but notice that the notes produced sounded like those of Terry Riley, who he often listened to.
Riley was a minimalistic artist but made a huge name for himself in music as a forward-thinking composer. Townshend could hear his influence in the notes produced using his experimental method, so he decided to incorporate his name into the title. What we have now is a combination of the two.
“I thought I would start with an experiment based on the statistics of my Indian Master at the time, Meher Baba,” said Townshend when discussing the song, “When I finished I was amazed to hear that the end results sounded very much like a piece by a guy called Terry Riley, who I was very into at the time. So, I called it ‘Baba O’Riley’.”
What does “teenage wasteland” mean?
Many people don’t actually refer to the song ‘Baba O’Riley’ by its name and instead call it ‘Teenage Wasteland’. Given that the song title comes from the sound of the introduction rather than the actual lyrics contained within the song itself, ‘Teenage Wasteland’ is much more representative of the track as a whole. So, what does this actually refer to?
Again, it all comes back to what the track was originally written for. As the band tried to make a sequel to Tommy, they began thinking of different ways to set the scene for their story and found that one of the best places for the song to take place would be in what they called a “Teenage Wasteland.” The lyrics formed themselves around this idea.
Townshend has commented on both aspects of this rejected title, referring first to the “Wasteland” section. He said, “A self-sufficient drop-out family group farming in a remote part of Scotland decide to return South to investigate rumours of a subversive concert event that promises to shake and wake up apathetic, fearful British society.” Townshend continued, “Ray is married to Sally; they hope to link up with their daughter Mary, who has run away from home to attend the concert. They travel through the scarred wasteland of middle England in a motor caravan, running an air conditioner they hope will protect them from pollution.”
Townshend also gave more backbone to the story by discussing the “Teenage” element of the song, which stemmed from some of the characters who were likely going to be a part of the tale. “It’s mainly young people who are either farmer’s kids whose parents can’t afford to buy them expensive suits; then there’s just scum, like these two geezers who ride around in a battered-up old Cadillac limousine,” he said, “And they play old Who records on the tape deck… I call them Track fans.”
The song may well feel a bit disjointed when analysing its name and lyrics, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of The Who’s biggest tracks. Lifehouse never came to fruition, but the song found itself as the opener on Who’s Next, another classic record by the band.
