Music & lyrics by The Who and article by Ey@el

Original en français

I am sorry for my lack of presence of late and for my posting frequency now cut down to only one article a week. I'm currently busy working on other projects that are particularly engaging, one of which I hope to present to you soon.

So last Sunday, at the end of a long two-hour walk in the surrounding fields, under the serious threat of dark uncertain skies, this song (which happens to be a top favourite of mine from time immemorial, but which I had not heard for ages) suddenly started loop-playing in my head and there was no way for me to stop it or simply ignore it. So there I was in the middle of the fields, singing to the crows! Message received (how could I not?), I had to write a blog post about it. And while researching about the Lifehouse project (which I had vaguely heard of), I finally understood why this song has been brought back to my attention at this moment in time. And I hope after reading this article you will as well.

You're travelling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop...the Twilight Zone.

Baba O'Riley

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
No I don't need to be forgiven
No no no no no no no

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Sally take my hand
We'll travel south cross land
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
Let's get together
Before we get much older

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh yeah, teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

© Pete Townshend, 1971

About this song

The title is a direct reference to the two major influences of Pete Townshend in the late 1960's, that is Meher Baba, his spiritual guru, and Terry Riley, an experimental composer who inspired many of the keyboard riffs and sound effects on Who's Next–of which this song is actually the opener. According to the album liner notes, Townshend wrote it as his vision of “what would happen if the spirit of Meher Baba was fed into a computer and transformed into music. The result would be Baba in the style of Terry Riley, or "Baba O'Riley".”

The “teenage wasteland” phrase is totally unrelated to the two above-mentioned people and actually comes from another eponymous song originally written for the Lifehouse project, a rock opera meant as a follow-up to Tommy. It was supposed to be Ray, the Scot farmer protagonist of the album, singing this song to mark his exodus to London with his family.

Lifehouse is set in a time where most of England is a polluted wasteland. Townshend described it as:

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. 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.

As for the “teenage” bit, he said:

There are regular people, but they're the scum off the surface; there's a few farmers there, that's where the thing from "Baba O'Riley" comes in. It's mainly young people who are either farmer's kids whose parents can't afford to buy them experience suits; then there's just scum, like these two geezers who ride around in a battered-up old Cadillac limousine and they play old Who records on the tape deck... I call them “Track fans”. So basically, teenagers travelling across the wasteland to attend this concert.

Lifehouse synopsis

In the world in which the album is set, pollution is so bad that the populace are forced to wear Lifesuits, suits that could simulate all experiences in a way that no one would have to leave home (thirty years ahead of The Matrix movie, Covid lockdowns and the sick ravings of the Davos clique).

The suits are plugged into a huge mainframe called the Grid which also contains tubes for sleeping gas, food, and entertainment; supposedly, someone could live out tens of thousands of lifetimes in a very short period within the Grid. The Grid is controlled by a man named Jumbo.

The story begins when a farming family in Scotland hears of a huge rock concert called Lifehouse occurring in London, a sort of post-apocalyptic Woodstock. Their daughter, Mary, runs away to join the concert.

They don't wear Lifesuits because they are supposedly out of the pollution's range and they farm the crops that the government buys to feed the Lifesuiters.

Bobby is the creator of Lifehouse. He is a hacker who broadcasts pirate radio signals advertising his concert, where the participants' personal data are taken from them and converted into music, quite literally “finding your song”.

There once was a note
Pure and easy
Playin' so free, like a breath rippling by

The note is eternal
I hear it it sees me
Forever we blend
And forever we die

♫ "Pure and Easy"

At the climax of the album, the authorities have surrounded the Lifehouse; then the perfect note rings forth through the combination of everybody's songs, they storm the place to find everybody has disappeared through a sort of musical Rapture, and the people observing the concert through their Lifesuits have vanished as well.

Please, note Lifehouse is an aborted project, but many songs written for it found their way onto various albums and compilations though mainly on Who's Next.

Ey@el