Single:
Baba O’Riley entered the Australian singles chart* on 26 June 1972 and peaked at #80.
Album:
The song is on Who’s Next which entered the Australian albums chart* on 11 October 1971 and peaked at #3.
Songwriter:
Pete Townshend
Producer:
The Who
Record label of Australian release:
Polydor
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Filmed on B-Stage at Shepperton Studios on 25 May 1978 in front of an invited audience including members of The Pretenders, Generation X, the Rich Kids and the Sex Pistols and included in Jeff Stein’s documentary The Kids Are Alright:
Wikipedia:
Townshend wrote Baba O’Riley for his Lifehouse project, a rock opera intended as the followup to the Who’s 1969 opera Tommy. When Lifehouse was scrapped, eight of the songs were salvaged and recorded for the Who’s fifth studio album Who’s Next, with Baba O’Riley as the lead-off track.
The song title refers to two of Townshend’s primary inspirations at the time: Indian spiritual master Meher Baba and American minimalist composer Terry Riley.
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.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_O’Riley
Lyrics:
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
Don’t cry, don’t raise your eye
It’s only teenage wasteland
Click for full lyrics
This song is also on our Spotify playlists Bang a Gong – the 70s and Bang a Gong – 60s & 70s Rock Hits
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