About The Song
“Baba O’Riley” is a song by the English rock band The Who, released as the opening track on their fifth studio album, Who’s Next, on August 2, 1971, through Decca Records in the US and Track Records in the UK. Written by guitarist Pete Townshend and produced by The Who with associate producer Glyn Johns, it was recorded in April–May 1971 at Olympic Studios in London, with initial sessions at Mick Jagger’s Stargroves using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. The single, backed with “My Wife,” was released in October 1971 in several European countries but not in the US or UK, where it remained an album track.
The song did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100, as it was not released as a single in the US, but the Who’s Next album reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, selling over 3 million copies in the US by 2000, earning 3× Platinum certification from the RIAA. Internationally, the single peaked at No. 7 in the Netherlands (Single Top 100), No. 13 in Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders), No. 55 in Germany (GfK), and No. 80 in France (SNEP). It received Silver certification in the UK (200,000 units) and Gold in Italy (25,000 units). The track is ranked No. 349 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010), No. 159 on Pitchfork’s Top 200 Tracks of the 1970s, and is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
The song originated from Townshend’s ambitious Lifehouse project, a planned rock opera follow-up to The Who’s 1969 album Tommy. In Lifehouse, it was intended as a song sung by a Scottish farmer named Ray, embarking on an exodus to London, as noted in a 2000 Lifehouse Chronicles release. When Lifehouse was abandoned due to its complexity, the song was salvaged for Who’s Next. Its title combines the names of Townshend’s spiritual guru, Meher Baba, and minimalist composer Terry Riley, whose work inspired the song’s hypnotic organ riff. Townshend initially aimed to input Meher Baba’s vital statistics into a synthesizer to generate music, but instead used a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 organ with its marimba repeat feature, as detailed in a 2008 Songfacts interview. The iconic riff was not a loop but a live performance, per Glyn Johns in the Classic Albums: Who’s Next documentary.
Recording details include a 30-minute demo edited down to five minutes, with additional segments later released on Townshend’s Lifehouse Chronicles as “Baba M1” and “Baba M2.” Drummer Keith Moon suggested adding a violin solo for the outro, performed by Dave Arbus of East of Eden, who was recording nearby, as noted in a 2016 American Songwriter article. In live performances, Roger Daltrey often played this part on harmonica. The song’s lyrics were partly inspired by the littered fields after The Who’s 1969 Isle of Wight Festival performance and the drug-fueled chaos at Woodstock, where Townshend observed “20 people with brain damage,” as he stated in a 2004 Wikipedia entry. The track was used as the theme for CSI: NY (2004–2013) and featured in films like American Beauty (1999) and Free Guy (2021). It was performed at the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony with altered lyrics.
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Lyric
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
I don’t need to be forgiven
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahDon’t cry
Don’t raise your eye
It’s only teenage wastelandSally, 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 olderTeenage wasteland
It’s only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland, oh, yeah
Teenage wasteland
They’re all wasted