In 1971, The Who released an iconic track that would come to define the British rock band’s legacy and the younger generation as a whole—although songwriter Pete Townshend never intended the latter. “Baba O’Riley” proves that if a chord progression and vocal performance are powerful enough, listeners will latch on to the lyrics as a sign of pride and identity, even if those lyrics are actually sardonic and tongue-in-cheek. The song is also a testament to the fact that the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York two years earlier wasn’t all that great for everyone there.
In fact, Townshend went so far as to tell Guitar World, “Woodstock was horrible. It was only horrible because it went so wrong. It could have been extraordinary. I suppose with the carefully edited view that the public got through Michael Wadleigh’s film, it was a great event. But for those involved in it, it was a terrible shambles, full of the most naïve, childlike people.”
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The band’s experience at Woodstock helped inspire one of the most memorable parts of The Who’s 1971 track. “Don’t cry, don’t raise your eye / It’s only teenage wasteland / Teenage wasteland… / They’re all wasted.” Younger listeners latched onto those lyrics almost like a battle cry. If they had known Townshend’s true lyrical intention, they might have given those words a second thought.
Pete Townshend Said Teenagers Took This Iconic Who Track the Wrong Way
When we think of Woodstock, we often imagine it from the perspective of one of the hundreds of thousands of audience members, looking up at the stage with awe. But the performers had quite the view, too. Musicians watched upwards of half a million people dancing, partying, and doing drugs, all while slipping and sliding in the mud. (Some musicians, like John Fogerty, watched the front rows sleep while they played a late-night set.) It was undoubtedly as shocking and mind-boggling from the musicians’ perspective as it was the crowd that traveled from far and wide to watch them, which is what helped Pete Townshend write “Baba O’Riley”.
In his 2009 conversation with Guitar World, Townshend lamented over the “disarming” effect the Woodstock festival had on the band’s level of fame. While it certainly had its perks (Roger turning into a “new kind of rock sun god” and having “a few women in the audience for a change” were two that came to Townshend’s mind), he said this level of fame broke “the natural, easy connection between me, as the writer. ‘Baba O’Riley’ is about the absolute desolation of teenagers at Woodstock, where everybody was smacked out on a*** and 20 people, or whatever, had brain damage. The contradiction was that it became a celebration. ‘Teenage wasteland! Yes! We’re all wasted!’”
Townshend might not have intended for his lyrics to resonate with the younger generation in that way, but the band benefited from this public reception just the same. Although The Who never released the song as a single in the U.S. or the U.K., the iconic track became one of their most popular songs and remains a staple in rock radio airplay to this day.
Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns