"WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN" ● The WHO
The Who / Publicity Photo 1965 / Left to right John Entwistle, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and Keith Moon.
"WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN" ● The WHO
Song● Won’t Get Fooled Again
Writer● Pete Townshend
Producer● The Who with Glyn Johns
Recorded● 1971, Stargroves, Berkshire, England
Released● June 25, 1971
Players●
:: Roger Daltrey -- vocals
:: Keith Moon -- drums
:: John Entwistle -- bass
:: Pete Townshend -- guitars, synthesizer, vocals, organ
Album● Who's Next (MCA, 1971)
Also On●
:: The Kids Are Alright (MCA, 1979)
:: The Secret Policeman's Ball (Island, 1980)
:: Hooligans (MCA, 1981)
:: Who's Greatest Hits (MCA, 1983)
:: Who's Last (MCA, 1984)
:: Who's Better, Who's Best (MCA, 1988)
:: Join Together (MCA, 1990)
:: The Who: Thirty Years Of Maximum R&B (MCA, 1994)
:: My Generation: The Very Best Of The Who (MCA, 1996)
:: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best Of The Who (MCA, 1999)
:: The Concert For New York City (Columbia, 2001)
:: The Ultimate Collection (Universal, 2002)
Who’s Next ● The Who
Who's Next is the fifth studio album by The Who released on 2 August 1971.
The Who Song "Won't Get Fooled Again" was written for Lifehouse, which was planned as a major rock opera spiritually uniting band and fans. Instead, it gave singer-guitarist Pete Townshend a nervous breakdown. Songs from the aborted project became Who's Next.
The single, cut in half for radio airplay, hit Number Nine in the U.K. and Number 10 in the U.S. Who's Next made it to Number Four on the Billboard 200, and hit Number One in England.
It was the first Who song to use a synthesizer. At Mick Jagger's country house Stargroves, where the Who recorded Who's Next, Townshend unveiled a backing track he'd created with the then-new ARP 2600 synthesizer and a guitar "envelope follower." "This definitive classic '70s rock song actually came from an indulgent experiment in electronic music," Townshend told biographer Geoffrey Giuliano.
"Won't Get Fooled Again" is less a call for revolution than a disillusioned behind-the-scenes critique of uprising. The closing line, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," sums up Townshend's point, which is that the new leaders may have longer beards and different-colored flags, but nothing ever changes.
"Won't Get Fooled Again" served as the Who's standard concert finale (before the encore), even as late as the band's 1982, 1989, and 1996 tours. The group usually used the original synthesizer tape in concert.
Roger Daltrey's extended scream in the song is one of the high points of the band's performances. Townshend, in Giuliano's 1996 biography Behind Blue Eyes, says, "The hero of the piece warns, 'Don't be fooled, don't be taken in.' It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense when in fact it's such a cautionary piece."
Townshend, in a mid-'70s interview, said, "The first verse sounds like a revolution song and the second like somebody getting tired of it. It's an anti-anti song."
In the late '80s, Townshend told interviewers he hated the song. "It was the dumbest song I've ever written," he told Giuliano. "It was dumb to deny the political role of the individual. Burning your draft card is a purely political act. Throwing your vote away is an apolitical act, and 'Won't Get Fooled Again' was an apolitical song. Luckily, people didn't listen to the verses... It was an irresponsible song. It was quite clear during that period that rock had the ear of the people, and people were saying, 'Pete, you've got to use the Who. You've got to get the message across.'"
Townshend, lead singer Roger Daltrey, and bassist John Entwistle played it as an acoustic encore during the 1996 Quadrophenia shows.
The live version on The Kids Are Alright soundtrack is one of the last Who songs drummer Keith Moon played on before he died. Always an unpredictable player, Moon sounded out of shape on the recording. After Daltrey's famous scream, Moon comes in a couple of awkward moments too late.
KWXY plays the music of The Who and the Song “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is in the station library. Listen to the Sound of the Desert for More than 50 years, bringing independent, and iconic music to Palm Springs, the Desert Cities, and the Coachella Valley.
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