"Won't Get Fooled Again" | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Single by The Who | ||||||||||||
from the album Who's Next | ||||||||||||
B-side | "I Don't Even Know Myself" | |||||||||||
Released | 25 June 1971 | |||||||||||
Format | 7" Vinyl record | |||||||||||
Recorded | April–May 1971, Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, Stargroves, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom and Olympic Studios, London, England | |||||||||||
Genre | Hard rock | |||||||||||
Length | 8:32 3:36 (single edit) |
|||||||||||
Label |
Track (UK) Decca (USA) |
|||||||||||
Writer(s) | Pete Townshend | |||||||||||
Producer(s) | The Who, Glyn Johns (associate producer) | |||||||||||
The Who singles chronology | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
9 tracks |
---|
|
"Won't Get Fooled Again" is a song by the English rock band The Who, written by Pete Townshend. It was released as a single in June 1971, reaching the top 10 in the UK, while the full eight-and-a-half-minute version appears as the final track on the band's 1971 album Who's Next, released that August.
Townshend wrote the song as a closing number of the Lifehouse project, and the lyrics criticise revolution and power. To symbolise the spiritual connection he had found in music via the works of Meher Baba and Inayat Khan, he programmed a mixture of human traits into a synthesizer and used it as the main backing instrument throughout the song. The Who tried recording the song in New York in March 1971, but re-recorded a superior take at Stargroves the next month using the synthesizer from Townshend's original demo. Ultimately, Lifehouse as a project was abandoned in favour of Who's Next, a straightforward album, where it also became the closing track. The song has been performed as a staple of the band's setlist since 1971, often as the set closer, and was the last track drummer Keith Moon played live with the band.
As well as a hit, the song has achieved critical praise, appearing as one of Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has been covered by several artists, such as Van Halen who took their version to No. 1 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. It has been used for several TV shows and films, and in some political campaigns.
The song was originally intended for a rock opera Townshend had been working on, Lifehouse, which was a multi-media exercise based on his followings of the Indian religious avatar Meher Baba, showing how spiritual enlightenment could be obtained via a combination of band and audience. The song was written for the end of the opera, after the main character, Bobby, is killed and the "universal chord" is sounded. The main characters disappear, leaving behind the government and army, who are left to bully each other. Townshend described the song as one "that screams defiance at those who feel any cause is better 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 see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything." Bassist John Entwistle later said that the song showed Townshend "saying things that really mattered to him, and saying them for the first time."