Baba O’Riley - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Baba O’Riley

While driving and listening to the radio recently, one of my favorite songs from The Who came on and I was surprised to learn that the title displayed on the screen was "Baba O’Riley". After enjoying that song ever since it was recorded 50 years ago, I had always thought the title was "Teenage Wasteland", because that term was prevalent in the lyrics. Unlike most songs, the lyrics did not include any reference to the title, so it had escaped me over the years. My curiosity piqued, after returning home, I googled "Baba O’Riley" and learned The Who's legendary guitarist Peter Townsend had named the song after his two musical and philosophical mentors, Terry Riley, an American musician and Meher Baba an eastern Indian guru.

According to Townsend, at the end of the band's gig at the 1969 Isle of Wight Festival the field was covered in rubbish left by fans, which inspired the line "teenage wasteland”. In another interview Townshend stated the song was also inspired by "the absolute desolation of teenagers he observed while playing at Woodstock, where audience members were all wasted on drugs!"

For me, it was an anti-war protest song against the Viet Nam War being waged at the time.

Speaking of wasted, Townsend himself was notorious for “wasting his guitar” during the group's early concerts. He’d smash his guitar during the playing of My Generation at the close of every concert to the delight of fans.

Baba O'Riley is recognized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland as one of the best 500 songs of all time, and of course, The Who were Hall of Fame inductees in 1990. That’s about the time my wife and I attended one of their concerts to celebrate our wedding anniversary at the Windsor Casino, just across the river from Detroit. We stayed overnight at the casino hotel because the concert started around 10:00, which gave us time for a nice dinner at a favorite restaurant in Windor's Little Italy and some gambling in the casino trying my infamous betting system described in this past blogpost.

About that time the TV show CSI was popular, with The Who theme song “Who Are You”. Marge Helgenberger was my favorite crime scene investigator!

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