“Baba O’Riley” – Single by the Who from the album Who’s Next
B-side “My Wife”
Released October 1971
Recorded May 1971
Label Polydor
Songwriter Pete Townshend
Producer The Who
The Who
Roger Daltrey – lead vocals; harmonica (live versions only)
Pete Townshend – Lowrey organ, piano, guitars, co-lead vocals
John Entwistle – bass guitar
Keith Moon – drums
The first part of the title comes from Meher Baba, who was Pete Townshend’s spiritual guru. The second part comes from Terry Riley, an experimental, minimalist composer Townshend admired – many of the keyboard riffs and sound effects on Who’s Next were a result of Riley’s influence. According to the Who’s Next 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 title is not mentioned in the lyrics, so the song is often referred to as “Teenage Wasteland.” The “Teenage Wasteland” section was a completely different song Townshend combined with his “Baba O’Riley” idea to form the song.
The famous violin part was performed by Dave Arbus of the group East of Eden, who created what many consider the first Celtic Rock song with “Jig a Jig.”
According to Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time, this violin jig at the end was drummer Keith Moon’s idea. In concert, Roger Daltrey would play the jig on harmonica.
“Pete seemed to be well on top of everything,” recalled Arbus to Uncut magazine. “There was no real direction as to what they wanted from me. But it’s quite an unusual track – an electronic piece with a Celtic kind of violin – and I just did what I would normally do, certain licks that I knew how to play.”
Widely regarded as one of the Who’s finest songs and as one of the greatest rock songs of all time, “Baba O’Riley” appears in Time’s “All-Time 100 Songs” list, Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
“Baba O’Riley” appears at No. 159 on Rolling Stone’s list of “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. The song is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. The band Pearl Jam regularly plays a cover of the song during concerts, and a readers’ poll in Rolling Stone awarded this cover as #8 in their “Greatest Live Cover Songs”. In 2012, Paste ranked the song number two on their list of the 20 greatest Who songs, and in 2022, Rolling Stone ranked the song number six on their list of the 50 greatest Who songs.
