Just heard it. It is the best part of the song.
Yes, I know its about teenage angst and uncertainty, but the lyrics are crap.
Anyway, is the violin part lifted from some classical piece? It sounds a bit like Brahms.
Might as well get this out of the way: The song’s name isn’t Teenage Wasteland. It’s Baba O’Riley.
Never heard of it.
But, there’s this really great song by The Who named Baba O’Riley.
ETA: sniped!
It was all Keith’s idea. Pete did have a very similar version for Lifehouse that was indeed called Teenage Wasteland.
The violin part is original to “Baba O’Riley”. It was performed by David Arbus, a friend of The Who’s Keith Moon and himself a member of the prog rock band East of Eden.
I agree it is the best part of the song, and one of the best bits of The Who’s whole oeuvre. Also, I agree that the lyrics to Baba O’Riley, let alone the title (yes, I do know what it means, but it remains the case that it is totally incomprehensible unless someone tells you, or you look it up), do not seem to make any sense, and appear to cobbled together from about three unrelated songs. I do not think that matters very much, however, it still works as whole.
On stage, when I saw them in '74, anyway, instead of the violin, Roger played the harmonica (and the synthesizer part was on tape, I think). It was not the same.
Thanks for clearing this up-I never knew the correct title.
I guess I’m wasted!
Well in your defense, it’s one of a handful of songs whose title doesn’t appear in the lyrics. Not counting instrumentals, of course. Right up there with Randy Scouse Git
The lyrics to “Baba O’Riley” have never bothered me, but this song – and most of the Who’s Next album – were salvaged from an aborted rock opera project that was to be titled Lifehouse. It likely would have made more sense in context. Or perhaps not; to make a very long story short, Lifehouse was abandoned because the project kept getting more and more complicated and making less and less sense to anyone but Pete Townshend.
Maybe Pete will explain some of it when his autobiography comes out in October.