Wont Get Fooled Again Theme Song
Won't Get Fooled Again is one of the biggest classic rock anthems of all time. Written by Pete Townshend and released by The Who every bit a single in June 1971, reaching the UK top ten. It was the final track on the incredible Who's Next album, released Baronial 1971.
The runway was originally conceived for an entirely different projection. Following the success of Tommy, the ring'south 1969 double concept album that sent The Who into rock's aristocracy sectionalisation, Townshend started work on a new conceptual project called Lifehouse.
The story was an intriguing ane, if a fleck abstract. It was designed to bear witness how spiritual enlightenment could be obtained via a combination of band and audience. The concept was imagined as a multi-media practice, involving a motion-picture show and theatrical live performances in improver to the music. Even the music was to be developed in a new way: through interaction with a live audience. The trouble was that nobody only Townshend fully understood what it was all about thematically, what it would entail, or how the execution really piece of work work.
Lifehouse is prepare in the about time to come in a social club in which music is banned and most of the population live indoors in government-controlled experience suits continued through a grid. A rebel, Bobby, broadcasts rock music into the suits, allowing people to remove them and become more enlightened.
Interestingly, the story describes technology that would exist adult years later. For instance, the grid resembles the internet, and people's experiences within the experience suits basically draw a form of virtual reality.
Bobby finds that at that place is a universal chord that is then pure that information technology has the power to restore harmony and enlighten anyone who hears information technology. Won't Get Fooled Once more was written for the terminate of the opera, when the people are free and looking to overthrow the leadership. Bobby is killed and the universal chord is finally sounded. The main characters disappear, leaving behind the government and army to have at each other.
We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred united states of america on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the songI'll tip my lid to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smiling and grin at the change all around
Selection up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
Nosotros don't get fooled once again
Townshend realised that the newly emerging synthesizers would allow him to communicate the ideas he had to a mass audience. He had met the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which gave him ideas for capturing human personality within music. Townshend interviewed several people with general practitioner-style questions, and captured their heartbeat, brainwaves and astrological charts, converting the consequence into a series of audio pulses.
For the demo of Won't Get Fooled Again, he linked a Lowrey organ into an Ems VCS three filter that played back the pulse-coded modulations from his experiments. He subsequently upgraded to an ARP 2500. The synthesizer did not play any sounds straight as information technology was monophonic; instead it modified the block chords on the organ as an input indicate.
These blazon of arpeggiated synthesizer sounds would be used on ii songs on the anthology: opener Baba O'Riley and closer Won't Get Fooled Again, bookending the album with songs featuring this sound – and quite prominently at that. The nerve of in particular opening the album with a huge, extended synthesizer intro, was a ballsy move. It was also very unique – not only the sonic quality of the sound itself, just the percussive rhythms that the patterns infused into their songs.
It almost certainly was the first time a major rock band had used a synthesizer like this. Others may take wanted to or would have leapt at the chance, but the instrument was simply uncommon before Townshend got his easily on i. Likewise, very few knew how to work them and they were actually difficult to program. Townshend spent countless weeks holed upwards in the studio getting to the bottom of this instrument and the new opportunity information technology offered, putting in time, try, and pure stamina that others just may non accept had.
The demo, recorded at a slower tempo than the version by the Who, was completed by Townshend overdubbing drums, bass, electric guitar, vocals and handclaps. In the Classic Albums documentary for the Who'south Adjacent anthology, Townshend said: "When I did this audio for Won't Go Fooled Over again I didn't have the full equipment. It arrived during the making of the demos. By the time I had finished the demos I knew how to work it, just what I did accept was a much simpler organ synthesizer. I took the output of the organ and put it through a filter, which is what they telephone call 'sample and agree' – you get these random voltages coming out. I suppose I was just sitting there and playing information technology for 60 minutes after hour, getting into it. The chords I used were very simple – virtually kind of naïvely unproblematic, only then again, the end result is extraordinarily harmonically complex."
What many presume to be a loop, is actually a live performance with many subtle variations, making a loop impossible.
Townshend's demo of the song contains a much more straightforward drum and bass blueprint than the ones Keith Moon and John Entwistle would add to the vocal. "When I first started playing the drums I tried to emulate Keith, but in the finish I thought, f*ck it. I don't really want to play like that." He knew that the songs would yet get the inevitable and inimitable stamp by the other band members, making it into a song by The Who rather than Pete Townshend solo.
At a point well into the song, at that place is an organ solo with the same arpeggiated rhythm. "That part is something I couldn't take written on paper," said Townshend. "What's interesting there is what happens to the organ. The function has been playing in the background all along, when it of a sudden becomes a solo. The office is me playing, and information technology turns into something beautiful and spontaneous. Something very disciplined. I'm merely following it – I did not write it, I follow the music."
That solo spot became a pivotal betoken in the live shows besides, with incredible laser effects casting a spectacular display over the stage, Roger Daltrey's shadow reappearing in the center, backed by Keith Moon'due south incredible percussive work, before the band explode dorsum into it – with THAT scream.
Roger Daltrey's scream towards the end of the solo, right before the "come across the new boss, same as the quondam boss" department, is but incredible. It is largely considered ane of the all-time recorded screams on whatever rock song. Co-ordinate to legend, it was such a disarming wail the rest of the band, who were lunching nearby, thought Daltrey was having a brawl with the engineer. Who biographer Dave Marsh described it as "the greatest scream of a career filled with screams".
The lyrics of Won't Exist Fooled Again has equally interesting a backstory as the music. To fully empathise everything that went into the vocal, nosotros need to look at the commune on Eel Pie Island, right near a place on the River Themes in Richmond, London, where Pete Townshend lived at the fourth dimension. There was an active commune on the island at the fourth dimension, situated in what used to be a hotel. "There was like a honey thing going on between me an them," Townshend said. "They dug me because I was like a figurehead in a grouping, and I dug them because I could run into what was going on over in that location. At ane betoken there was an astonishing scene where the commune was really working, merely and so the acid started flowing and I got on the end of some psychotic conversations."
In the documentary The History of The Who, Townshend offered more detail on what happened: "When I wrote Won't Get Fooled Again I was a young man with a family. I have a choice about what I tin and cannot do, and what I tin can and cannot think. The sensibility of the day was that the artist – the rock musician – was the property of the people. It was the musician who should be liberated. This was exacerbated a bit by the fact that I lived right almost a place on the River Themes called Eel Pie Island, which had been taken over by a bunch of hippies and Grateful Dead fans, and the Squealer Pen… all that agglomeration came one mean solar day and distributed heroin and LSD. They used to come and knock at the door and say, "requite usa food"! I'd say okay, and I'll give 'em some food. The next day they were dorsum, and said "requite u.s. more food"! I said okay again, and of course the next they were back yet once again saying "requite united states of america more nutrient!" I finally said, "we've run out of food." They went, what? I repeated "we've run out of food." They could not cover this. "But… we want more food!" Later they would come up by and say "give u.s.a. a car – we want to liberate your machine!" I told a story almost them to a friend once, and my wife got so angry crusade I'd never told her almost it. She hates it when she hears things 2nd hand, and this one was about one of these guys knocking at the door saying "nosotros've come up to liberate your baby!" I hateful… Jesus F*cking Christ. They were wackos. And that was the climate in which I wrote Won't Get Fooled Again. It caused quite a lot of difficulty for me, but I had to think most information technology and I had to stand by it."
The Woodstock festival was also an influence on this song. Most songs inspired past Woodstock follow the peace and love narrative, but Townshend had a very dissimilar take.
The Who played on mean solar day two, going on at the ludicrous hour of 5 in the morning. During their set, the activist Abbie Hoffman came on phase unannounced and commandeered the microphone. Accounts differ on whether Townshend belted him with his guitar, only he certainly did not want to provide a platform for whatever crusade. "I wrote Won't Get Fooled Over again as a reaction to all that," he explained to Creem in 1982. "As in, 'Leave me out of it; I don't retrieve you lot lot would exist any amend than the other lot!'"
The song has been taken as a call to artillery for a number of causes over the years, which is the verbal opposite of what its writer had in mind. In The History of The Who documentary, Townshend said, "Strangely plenty, information technology's the kind of song which is adopted for many causes, you lot know. We have to keep reminding people that this is most our right to stand away from causes. Y'all know, we choose not to be fooled by your rhetoric, by your politicisation, by your spin. Nosotros think for ourselves, and we too have the right to opt out. I remember what I felt at the time was that I if I had been confronted with people coming to say 'we want the coin dorsum,' I would merely say that you tin't have it and I'1000 bachelor for hire. If you don't want to rent me, don't rent me. You can't liberate me – I'chiliad non your property."
The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
Nosotros were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the globe looks merely the same
And history own't inverse
Crusade the banners, they are flown in the side by side war
Townshend described the song as i "that screams defiance at those who feel any cause is amend than no cause." He later said that the song was not strictly anti-revolution despite the lyric "We'll exist fighting in the streets", just stressed that revolution could be unpredictable, adding, "Don't expect to see what yous expect to see. Expect nothing and y'all might gain everything."
Bassist John Entwistle after said that the song showed Townshend "saying things that actually mattered to him, and saying them for the offset time."
One of the pivotal lyrics to always come from a The Who song are establish at the finish of this song.
Meet the new boss
Same equally the old dominate
The song has often been taken up in an anthemic sense, only these words more than whatever other should make it clear that it'south actually a cautionary piece. Townshend said: "Won't Become Fooled Again was not a defined statement. Information technology was a plea! Information technology was a plea, because you know – in the Lifehouse story, information technology said; please don't feel considering yous've come to the concert, to this place, that you've got an answer. Delight don't make me on the stage the new dominate. Considering I'm just the same equally the guy who was up hither before. You're in accuse."
In looking closer at the Lifehouse story and Won't Get Fooled Again, you realise that it is non describing utopia. It is much closer to dystopia. The current world gild does not work and people are paying the price for information technology. The rock opera depicts leadership as a dangerous thought, which may be some of the reason why it was so hard to pull off. Information technology put forth the idea that actions take consequences. The order of the day dorsum then was that actions and revolutions were supposed to have glorious results – not consequences. Was the earth ready for such a bulletin dorsum so? It may have been more than convenient to lump it in with the political protest songs of the era. Some no dubiety thought that'southward what the song was nearly in any case.
Most of the songs that make upward the Lifehouse rock opera reflects a striving to attempt and make more of ourselves – to become more conscious, more aware, more consummate as homo beings. Won't Get Fooled Again stands out on its ain considering it carries a strong message of encouraging self-empowerment and thinking for yourself. But, as part of Lifehouse, information technology was office of an fifty-fifty bigger message.
The Who'southward first attempt to record the song was at the Record Establish on W 44 Street, New York Urban center, on 16 March 1971. Director Kit Lambert had recommended the studio to the group, which led to his producer credit, though the de facto piece of work was done by Felix Pappalardi from the ring Mountain. This accept featured Pappalardi'south bandmate, Leslie W, on lead guitar.
Lambert proved to exist unable to mix the track, and a fresh attempt at recording was made at the start of April at Mick Jagger's house, Stargroves, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Glyn Johns was invited to help with production, and he decided to re-utilize the synthesized organ track from Townshend's original demo, as the re-recording of the part in New York was felt to be inferior to the original.
Keith Moon had to carefully synchronise his drum playing with the synthesizer, while Townshend and Entwistle played electric guitar and bass. Townshend played a 1959 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins hollow body guitar fed through an Edwards volume pedal to a Fender Bandmaster amp, all of which he had been given past Joe Walsh while in New York. This combination became his main electric guitar recording setup for subsequent albums.
The Stargroves recording of the vocal was intended as a demo recording, simply the end result sounded so good that they decided to use it every bit the concluding take. Some overdubs, including an acoustic guitar role played by Townshend, were recorded at Olympic Studios at the end of April. The track was mixed at Island Studios by Johns on 28 May.
During this process, Lifehouse as a project was abandoned. Y'all could say it collapsed under its ain weight, with Townshend never fully being able to explain the full concept or get others to share his own enthusiasm for the project. He did non take the strength to deport all the ideas through on his own. Producer Glyn Johns felt that nigh of the songs they had been working on, including Won't Go Fooled Again, were so adept that it did non matter. The best of them could but be released as a single album of standalone songs. This became Who's Next.
Without the concept of Lifehouse to provide an overarching context, the songs now had to stand on their own legs, providing their ain inner pregnant. Won't Be Fooled Over again was meant to provide a climax in the Lifehouse story, but the song would is so powerful in whatever case that it ends up providing a similar climax to the Who's Side by side album.
Roger Daltrey felt that having gone through the initial phases of the Lifehouse project had been very beneficial to the album they ended up with. "If we hadn't been given the gamble to at least be working for this kind of ethereal projection of Pete's – it was going to be a concept, a moving-picture show and this and that – we would accept just gone into the studio with demos and recorded information technology the way all our other albums were recorded. Whereas, this album is a real organic Who album, and it's got much more of what The Who really were about. Information technology has much more than of our stage presence, because we knew the songs so well."
This is a very adept bespeak, and every musician delivered brilliantly. A lot of the songs had been explored in rehearsal a alive to an extent that they unremarkably didn't for new material. Whether y'all focus on the vocals, guitar, bass, or drums, the parts are incredibly well developed. They managed to display the usual levels of virtuosity while fitting it in naturally within the song. Nothing sounds overwrought – it just sounds amazing.
The album version runs 8:30. The single was shortened to 3:35 so radio stations would play it. The band was not happy that the song had to be edited, and Daltrey has expressed particular unhappiness about it. He recalled toUncut magazine, "I hated it when they chopped it down. I used to say 'F*ck it, put it out as eight minutes', but in that location'd always be some excuse virtually non fitting information technology on or some technical affair at the pressing plant. After that we started to lose interest in singles because they'd cutting them to $.25. We thought, 'What'due south the bespeak? Our music's evolved past the three-minute bulwark and if they can't conform that we're just gonna have to live on albums.'"
The single was released on 25 June 1971, replacing Behind Blue Eyes which the group felt didn't fit The Who'south established musical style. Information technology was released in July in the US. The unmarried reached #9 in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland charts and #xv in the US. Initial publicity textile showed an abased cover of Who'south Next featuring Moon dressed in drag and brandishing a whip.
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The full-length version of the vocal appeared equally the closing rail of Who'due south Next, released 14 (US)/27 (United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland) August. It fabricated it to #iv on the United states of america Billboard charts, going all the fashion to #1 in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland – the only Who album to practice so. Won't Go Fooled Again drew stiff praise from critics, who were impressed that a synthesizer had managed to be integrated and so successfully within a rock song.
The vocal would immediately become a mainstay in The Who's alive shows, having been part of every Who concert since its release – commonly every bit the set closer and sometimes extended slightly to permit Townshend to smash his guitar or Moon to kicking over his drumkit. The group would perform it live over the synthesizer office existence played on a bankroll tape, which required Moon to wear headphones to hear a click rail, allowing him to play in sync.
It was the last rails Moon played live in front of a paying audience on 21 October 1976, and the final song he ever played with the Who at Shepperton Studios on 25 May 1978, which was captured on the documentary film The Kids Are Alright.
Several alive and alternative versions of the song have been released on CD or DVD. In 2003, a deluxe version of Who'south Adjacent was reissued to include the Tape Found recording of the rail from March 1971. Information technology also included the primeval known live version from the Young Vic on 26 April 1971.
In its May 26, 2006 issue, the conservativeNational Review magazine published a listing of "The 50 greatest conservative stone songs." Won't Get Fooled Again was ranked song number ane. Pete Townsend responded on his web log equally follows: "It is non precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we volition indeed fight in the streets – only that revolution, like all action tin can accept results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what yous expect to come across. Expect nothing and yous might gain everything." Townsend then goes on to explain that the song was simply "Meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for sale, and could non be co-opted into any obvious cause."
Roger Daltrey has in later years admitted that the frequent airing of the song may have pushed information technology over the edge for him. "That'southward the only vocal I'chiliad bloody bored shitless with," he toldRolling Rock in 2018. Interestingly, that has not prevented Daltrey from nearly ever including the song in his solo concerts – as Entwistle and Townshend always did.
For better or worse, this is the vocal many will associate The Who with. My Generation was a solid canticle for the 1960s, merely they managed to redefine themselves and establish Won't Become Fooled Once more equally their new anthem for the 1970s onward – and it continues to be timeless.
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Source: https://norselandsrock.com/wont-get-fooled-again-the-who/
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