Part of Pete Townshend's abandoned rock opera Lifehouse (see my entry on "Won't Get Fooled Again"), "Baba O'Riley" is set in the future after mankind has turned the planet into a polluted dump—hence Roger Daltrey's repeated phrase teenage wasteland toward the end of the song. More or less, the song is about poor farmers' kids tossing down their plows and making a pilgrimage across what's left of England to attend this massive electronic music concert, where they hope to rekindle some kind of connection with reality and humanity.
So what's that story have to do with the song's title?
Not much, really.
As Townshend states in this clip from VH1's Storytellers, the "Baba" part refers to Indian philosopher/spiritual leader Meher Baba, whose teachings about perception and spirituality heavily influenced Townshend during this period. The "Riley" part refers to American avant garde musician and composer Terry Riley; Townshend's synth line is a clear homage to Riley's electronic experiments on the album A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969). (Take a listen, and you'll instantly hear what I mean.) Finally, because the violin jig at the end of the track sounded "a bit Irish," he added the "O'" to Riley's name.
The decidedly cerebral part of the song aside, it's a bruiser. Between Townshend's windmill power chords and the late Keith Moon's rhythmic assault, it's impossible to hear this track and not want to take on the world. (I've used it many a time to psych myself up for some task that I was dreading or scared to do.)
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