Wont Be Fooled Again
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 equally a single in June 1971, reaching the Britain top ten. It was the last runway on the incredible Who's Next anthology, released Baronial 1971.
The track was originally conceived for an entirely unlike projection. Post-obit the success of Tommy, the band's 1969 double concept album that sent The Who into stone'south aristocracy sectionalization, Townshend started piece of work on a new conceptual project called Lifehouse.
The story was an intriguing ane, if a bit abstruse. Information technology was designed to bear witness how spiritual enlightenment could exist obtained via a combination of band and audience. The concept was imagined equally a multi-media exercise, involving a movie and theatrical alive performances in add-on to the music. Even the music was to be developed in a new way: through interaction with a live audience. The problem was that nobody but Townshend fully understood what it was all about thematically, what it would entail, or how the execution really work work.
Lifehouse is set in the near future in a society in which music is banned and about of the population live indoors in authorities-controlled feel suits connected 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 be adult years later. For example, the grid resembles the cyberspace, and people's experiences within the experience suits basically depict a form of virtual reality.
Bobby finds that there is a universal chord that is so pure that it has the power to restore harmony and enlighten anyone who hears it. Won't Become Fooled Again 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 primary characters disappear, leaving behind the government and army to accept at each other.
We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will exist gone
And the men who spurred usa on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the songI'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and smiling at the change all around
Option up my guitar and play
Just similar yesterday
So I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Townshend realised that the newly emerging synthesizers would permit 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 effect into a series of audio pulses.
For the demo of Won't Go Fooled Again, he linked a Lowrey organ into an EMS VCS 3 filter that played dorsum the pulse-coded modulations from his experiments. He subsequently upgraded to an ARP 2500. The synthesizer did non play any sounds directly as it was monophonic; instead information technology modified the block chords on the organ as an input signal.
These type of arpeggiated synthesizer sounds would be used on two songs on the album: opener Baba O'Riley and closer Won't Get Fooled Over 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 motion. It was besides very unique – non just the sonic quality of the sound itself, but the percussive rhythms that the patterns infused into their songs.
It almost certainly was the showtime time a major rock band had used a synthesizer like this. Others may accept wanted to or would take leapt at the chance, but the musical instrument was simply uncommon before Townshend got his hands on i. Likewise, very few knew how to work them and they were actually difficult to program. Townshend spent countless weeks holed up in the studio getting to the bottom of this instrument and the new opportunity information technology offered, putting in time, endeavour, and pure stamina that others simply may not take 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'southward Next anthology, Townshend said: "When I did this sound for Won't Get Fooled Again I didn't have the full equipment. Information technology arrived during the making of the demos. By the time I had finished the demos I knew how to work it, but what I did have was a much simpler organ synthesizer. I took the output of the organ and put information technology through a filter, which is what they call 'sample and concur' – you get these random voltages coming out. I suppose I was merely sitting there and playing it for hour after hour, getting into it. The chords I used were very unproblematic – most kind of naïvely unproblematic, only so again, the end result is extraordinarily harmonically complex."
What many assume 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 song. "When I start started playing the drums I tried to emulate Keith, only in the end I idea, f*ck it. I don't actually want to play like that." He knew that the songs would however 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 have written on paper," said Townshend. "What'southward interesting there is what happens to the organ. The role has been playing in the groundwork all along, when it of a sudden becomes a solo. The part is me playing, and it turns into something beautiful and spontaneous. Something very disciplined. I'm just following it – I did not write information technology, I follow the music."
That solo spot became a pivotal point in the live shows as well, with incredible laser effects casting a spectacular display over the stage, Roger Daltrey'southward shadow reappearing in the middle, backed past Keith Moon's incredible percussive work, before the band explode back into it – with THAT scream.
Roger Daltrey's scream towards the terminate of the solo, right before the "meet the new dominate, same every bit the old boss" section, is simply incredible. It is largely considered one of the best recorded screams on whatsoever rock song. According to legend, it was such a disarming wail the residue 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 Be Fooled Over again has as interesting a backstory every bit the music. To fully understand everything that went into the song, we need to expect at the commune on Eel Pie Isle, right nearly a place on the River Themes in Richmond, London, where Pete Townshend lived at the time. In that location was an active commune on the isle at the time, situated in what used to be a hotel. "There was like a dearest thing going on between me an them," Townshend said. "They dug me considering I was similar a figurehead in a group, and I dug them because I could run into what was going on over there. At one point there was an amazing scene where the commune was really working, but and then the acid started flowing and I got on the stop 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 Over again I was a young man with a family. I accept a choice nigh what I can and cannot do, and what I can and cannot call back. The sensibility of the solar day was that the artist – the rock musician – was the holding of the people. It was the musician who should be liberated. This was exacerbated a bit by the fact that I lived right well-nigh a place on the River Themes called Eel Pie Isle, which had been taken over by a bunch of hippies and Grateful Dead fans, and the Pig Pen… all that bunch came one solar day and distributed heroin and LSD. They used to come and knock at the door and say, "give us food"! I'd say okay, and I'll give 'em some food. The next day they were back, and said "give us more food"! I said okay once more, and of course the adjacent they were back even so again saying "give us more food!" I finally said, "nosotros've run out of food." They went, what? I repeated "nosotros've run out of food." They could not embrace this. "Just… we want more food!" Afterwards they would come by and say "give us a car – nosotros want to liberate your car!" I told a story nearly them to a friend once, and my wife got and then aroused cause I'd never told her about information technology. She hates it when she hears things second paw, and this one was about 1 of these guys knocking at the door saying "nosotros've come to liberate your babe!" I mean… Jesus F*cking Christ. They were wackos. And that was the climate in which I wrote Won't Get Fooled Over again. Information technology caused quite a lot of difficulty for me, but I had to think about information technology and I had to stand up by it."
The Woodstock festival was besides an influence on this song. Most songs inspired past Woodstock follow the peace and love narrative, but Townshend had a very unlike take.
The Who played on day two, going on at the ludicrous 60 minutes of 5 in the morning. During their ready, the activist Abbie Hoffman came on phase unannounced and commandeered the microphone. Accounts differ on whether Townshend belted him with his guitar, but he certainly did non want to provide a platform for whatsoever cause. "I wrote Won't Become Fooled Again as a reaction to all that," he explained to Creem in 1982. "As in, 'Leave me out of it; I don't think you lot would exist whatever ameliorate than the other lot!'"
The song has been taken as a phone call to arms for a number of causes over the years, which is the exact opposite of what its writer had in mind. In The History of The Who documentary, Townshend said, "Strangely enough, it's the kind of vocal which is adopted for many causes, you know. We accept to keep reminding people that this is about our right to stand abroad from causes. You know, we choose not to be fooled by your rhetoric, past your politicisation, past your spin. We call up for ourselves, and we as well have the correct to opt out. I recall what I felt at the time was that I if I had been confronted with people coming to say 'nosotros want the money back,' I would just say that you can't have it and I'm available for rent. If you don't want to hire me, don't hire me. You tin can't liberate me – I'yard non your property."
The change, it had to come up
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the globe looks simply the same
And history own't changed
Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
Townshend described the song as one "that screams defiance at those who experience any cause is improve than no cause." He later said that the song was not strictly anti-revolution despite the lyric "We'll be fighting in the streets", but stressed that revolution could be unpredictable, adding, "Don't expect to come across what you expect to run into. Expect zero and yous might proceeds everything."
Bassist John Entwistle afterward said that the vocal showed Townshend "proverb things that really mattered to him, and saying them for the first time."
One of the pivotal lyrics to e'er come from a The Who song are found at the end of this song.
Meet the new boss
Same as the sometime boss
The vocal has often been taken upwardly in an anthemic sense, only these words more than whatsoever other should brand information technology clear that it'due south actually a cautionary piece. Townshend said: "Won't Get Fooled Again was not a divers argument. It was a plea! It was a plea, because yous know – in the Lifehouse story, it said; please don't feel because you've come to the concert, to this place, that you've got an answer. Please don't brand me on the phase the new dominate. Considering I'1000 just the same as the guy who was up here before. You're in accuse."
In looking closer at the Lifehouse story and Won't Go Fooled Again, you realise that it is not describing utopia. It is much closer to dystopia. The current world lodge does non work and people are paying the cost for it. The stone opera depicts leadership as a dangerous thought, which may be some of the reason why it was then hard to pull off. It put forth the idea that deportment have consequences. The club of the 24-hour interval back and so was that actions and revolutions were supposed to take glorious results – not consequences. Was the world ready for such a message dorsum and then? It may have been more user-friendly to lump it in with the political protestation songs of the era. Some no doubtfulness thought that'southward what the song was about in any case.
Most of the songs that make up the Lifehouse rock opera reflects a striving to effort and make more of ourselves – to become more conscious, more enlightened, more complete equally homo beings. Won't Get Fooled Once more stands out on its own because information technology carries a strong message of encouraging cocky-empowerment and thinking for yourself. But, as role of Lifehouse, it was office of an even bigger message.
The Who'due south start effort to tape the song was at the Record Plant on W 44 Street, New York City, on 16 March 1971. Manager Kit Lambert had recommended the studio to the group, which led to his producer credit, though the de facto work was done by Felix Pappalardi from the ring Mountain. This take featured Pappalardi'southward bandmate, Leslie West, on atomic number 82 guitar.
Lambert proved to be unable to mix the track, and a fresh endeavor at recording was made at the kickoff of April at Mick Jagger's firm, Stargroves, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Glyn Johns was invited to assist with production, and he decided to re-utilize the synthesized organ track from Townshend's original demo, equally the re-recording of the part in New York was felt to be junior to the original.
Keith Moon had to carefully synchronise his pulsate playing with the synthesizer, while Townshend and Entwistle played electrical 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 by Joe Walsh while in New York. This combination became his main electrical guitar recording setup for subsequent albums.
The Stargroves recording of the vocal was intended as a demo recording, but the stop upshot sounded so adept that they decided to use information technology as the final 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 Isle Studios past Johns on 28 May.
During this process, Lifehouse every bit a projection was abandoned. Y'all could say information technology collapsed under its ain weight, with Townshend never fully being able to explain the full concept or become others to share his own enthusiasm for the project. He did not have the force to comport all the ideas through on his own. Producer Glyn Johns felt that almost of the songs they had been working on, including Won't Get Fooled Again, were and so adept that it did not matter. The best of them could merely be released as a unmarried 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 own inner significant. Won't Be Fooled Again was meant to provide a climax in the Lifehouse story, but the song would is so powerful in whatever example that it ends upwardly providing a like climax to the Who's Next album.
Roger Daltrey felt that having gone through the initial phases of the Lifehouse project had been very benign to the anthology they concluded up with. "If we hadn't been given the hazard to at least be working for this kind of ethereal project of Pete's – information technology was going to be a concept, a film and this and that – nosotros would have merely gone into the studio with demos and recorded it the way all our other albums were recorded. Whereas, this album is a real organic Who anthology, and it's got much more of what The Who actually were nearly. It has much more of our stage presence, considering nosotros knew the songs then well."
This is a very good bespeak, and every musician delivered brilliantly. A lot of the songs had been explored in rehearsal a alive to an extent that they normally didn't for new material. Whether yous focus on the vocals, guitar, bass, or drums, the parts are incredibly well adult. They managed to display the usual levels of virtuosity while fitting it in naturally inside the song. Nothing sounds overwrought – information technology just sounds astonishing.
The album version runs viii: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 detail unhappiness nearly it. He recalled toUncut magazine, "I hated it when they chopped it downward. I used to say 'F*ck it, put it out equally eight minutes', but at that place'd always be some excuse almost not fitting it on or some technical matter at the pressing plant. Later that nosotros started to lose interest in singles because they'd cut them to bits. We idea, 'What's the point? Our music'south evolved past the iii-minute bulwark and if they can't accommodate that we're but 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'southward established musical manner. It was released in July in the US. The single reached #9 in the UK charts and #15 in the Us. Initial publicity textile showed an abandoned cover of Who'southward Next featuring Moon dressed in drag and brandishing a whip.
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The full-length version of the song appeared as the closing track of Who's Next, released 14 (U.s.)/27 (Britain) August. It made it to #iv on the US Billboard charts, going all the style to #one in the UK – the only Who anthology to practise then. Won't Get Fooled Again drew strong praise from critics, who were impressed that a synthesizer had managed to be integrated so successfully within a rock song.
The song would immediately go a mainstay in The Who's alive shows, having been part of every Who concert since its release – usually every bit the prepare closer and sometimes extended slightly to allow Townshend to smash his guitar or Moon to boot over his drumkit. The group would perform it alive over the synthesizer part being played on a backing tape, which required Moon to article of clothing headphones to hear a click track, allowing him to play in sync.
It was the final track Moon played live in forepart of a paying audience on 21 October 1976, and the last song he always played with the Who at Shepperton Studios on 25 May 1978, which was captured on the documentary film The Kids Are Alright.
Several live and alternative versions of the song have been released on CD or DVD. In 2003, a deluxe version of Who'southward Next was reissued to include the Tape Plant recording of the track 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 mag published a list of "The 50 greatest conservative rock songs." Won't Get Fooled Over again was ranked song number one. Pete Townsend responded on his weblog as follows: "It is not precisely a vocal that decries revolution – it suggests that nosotros will indeed fight in the streets – only that revolution, similar all action tin can take results nosotros cannot predict. Don't await to meet what y'all look to see. Expect zip and you might gain everything." Townsend and then goes on to explain that the song was but "Meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for auction, and could not be co-opted into whatever obvious cause."
Roger Daltrey has in later years admitted that the frequent airing of the song may have pushed it over the border for him. "That's the only song I'thousand bloody bored shitless with," he toldRolling Stone in 2018. Interestingly, that has not prevented Daltrey from nearly ever including the song in his solo concerts – every bit Entwistle and Townshend e'er did.
For ameliorate or worse, this is the song many will associate The Who with. My Generation was a solid anthem for the 1960s, but they managed to redefine themselves and establish Won't Become Fooled Again as their new anthem for the 1970s onward – and information technology continues to be timeless.
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