Who’s Next - The Who
Track List:
Baba O’Riley
Bargain
Love Ain’t For Keeping
My Wife
The Song Is Over
Getting In Tune
Going Mobile
Behind Blue Eyes
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Who are these guys?
Nah, I am aware of the Who, I spent a decent amount of time about 2 decades ago listening to Tommy. Off this album I recognize by name Baba O’Riley, This Song Is Over, Behind Blue Eyes, and Won’t Get Fooled Again. To my recollection I like all of these songs so I have no reason to suspect I will not be fond of the entirety of the album.
Baba O’Riley
I enjoy this song. The keys create a landscape for the rest of the song to play on top of. The power of the guitars. It’s a song that sings about youth and dreams of breaking out of a drab daily existence into a meaningful life. .
Bargain
I have heard this one before but I just didn’t recognize the name. The intro sounds really interesting, an acoustic sounding guitar strumming chord panned right and some electric guitar chords played in reverse panned left. It’s a love song where the narrator is willing to do anything to be with the person they love.
Love Ain’t For Keeping
Sounds like guitar, bass, and drums, no keys. Almost has a country feel. Seems to be a song about the physical consummation of love.
My Wife
Keys are back. This is rather different and keeps a bit of the country feel. The song tells about trying to stay out of the ire of the narrator's wife as she thinks he has cheated on her. I wonder if this woman is the same woman from Love Ain’t For Keeping.
The Song Is Over
The intro has some weird sounding synth bass drones that seem out of place to me. They have a very similar distortion as the guitar when it joins. I think the lyrics could be about the end of the relationship given it’s right after My Wife. Perhaps they have accepted that their song together has ended.
Getting In Tune
Piano and bass intro. The song says there are no hidden meanings. Sounds like something that someone who was trying to hide secret meanings would say. I believe that the man just called his wife or current girlfriend an “old piano” but he is also courting someone new.
Going Mobile
So apparently I’ve heard this one before too. Interesting use of keys. There are synths on here too with the drones. The song is about deciding to live on the road. Recently I’ve seen things about van living but it appears this is likely the same type thing. Living life on the road going where life takes you.
Behind Blue Eyes
This song appears to me to be about someone who is dubbed a “bad guy” but he sees his intentions as virtuous and with merit. Since I am contemplating this song, have you heard the Limp Bizkit cover of this one? It’s fantastically awful. If you don’t think Fred Durst is a horrible human and haven’t heard that then please listen to that and have your mind changed.
Won’t Get Fooled Again
With this song and Baba O’Riley I really feel like there is some overarching story to this but I can’t put it together and don’t feel like researching it currently. It has the synth creating a soundscape for the song to play on top of. The synth seems to be behind gated filters, it's neat. The lyrics almost seem like a group that was duped into giving power to someone and vowing to not let that happen again, perhaps the someone is the person singing in Behind Blue Eyes?
Who is next?
This is a great album. I had heard most of it and that does slightly frustrate me as I was hoping for some new things I hadn’t heard before. Perhaps I will try The Who Sell Out at some point but not now. I really like the work they did with the synths using them as a layer to stack other sounds upon to grow.
