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A conversation last night with a friend about secular and worship music got me thinking. Then this morning, “Baba O’Riley” by The Who showed up in my social media feed. Suddenly, I had to put my money where my mouth was.
I first heard it when I was eighteen. I still love the music, but I hear it differently now—not because the song has changed, but because I have. It brings back memories of an earlier chapter of my life, one I remember with affection, even as I recognize there are things about that time I wouldn’t want to return to.
Still rocks
I never get tired of this song. That opening, the way the synthesizer builds before the band comes crashing in, still gets me. This performance is a terrific example of The Who doing what The Who did best.
Even after all these years, it can still make me stop what I’m doing and turn up the volume.
Roger Daltrey has long been one of my favorite rock vocalists. There’s power in his voice and nobody could swing a microphone like he could. Pete Townshend is a force of his own. Those windmill guitar strokes and sweeping movements seem to drive electricity through the guitar itself. His theatrical abandon contrasts nicely with Daltrey’s grounded, commanding presence.
Then there’s John Entwistle, the quiet magician. His fingers seem to do things that shouldn’t be possible, and you could almost overlook just how much he’s doing in that bass line. Keith Moon is relatively restrained here compared to some of his other work, but there’s nothing ordinary about his playing. He drives the song forward without needing to compete for the spotlight.
Put all four together, and you have something special. That’s part of why the song has stayed with me.
Eighteen again
“Baba O’Riley” was released in 1971, but I didn’t discover it until the early 1980s, at eighteen.
At that age, the song captured something I recognized: energy, defiance, and the sense of possibility that comes with being young. When a song grabs you like that, you don’t necessarily stop to analyze what it’s saying. Sometimes you just turn it up and enjoy the ride.
And I certainly enjoyed this one.
But there’s more going on here than that infectious sound. The contrast between the music and the meaning behind its famous refrain interests me now. It’s easy to hear “teenage wasteland” as a celebration of youthful abandon. But Townshend has explained that he had something more sobering in mind. The image was influenced in part by the aftermath of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, where the fields were left covered in rubbish. He also saw a kind of desolation beneath the idealism and excesses of the youth culture surrounding events like Woodstock and the Isle of Wight.
There’s an irony in that. A phrase Townshend intended to convey something darker became, for many of us, an anthem celebrating the very thing he was questioning.
Sometimes what sounds like a celebration is actually an indictment. We can mistake the fire for the light, the excitement for something that will satisfy us.
I wasn’t part of the Woodstock or Isle of Wight generation. I was too young. But by the time I came of age in the early eighties, the culture had changed while many of the same questions remained. There was still plenty of restlessness, plenty of searching, and plenty of questions waiting for us when the music stopped.
I recognized some of that restlessness.
Listening now, I hear more than I did at eighteen. I can appreciate the music and remember what it meant to me while recognizing what I didn’t understand at the time.
An old friend
There’s something a little like reconnecting with an old friend when a song from an earlier chapter of life comes around again. The music brings back memories, and for a moment you can almost feel the energy of the person you were when you first heard it.
I can appreciate that connection without wanting to return to that time. The memories are part of my story, but they don’t have to determine where I go from here.
I’ve written before about finding something meaningful in secular music, but there’s another dimension to it for me now. This isn’t really about whether a Christian can listen to The Who. It’s about how I look at something that’s been part of my life for a long time, even as my life has changed.
Knowing Jesus has changed the way I look at my choices, my past, and the life I’m living now. I’ve grown in ways I couldn’t have anticipated when I was eighteen, and I know I still have plenty to learn.
Looking back, I can understand the young man I was—his ambitions, his expectations, and his mistakes. He had a lot to learn about life. I don’t need to pretend his choices were all good, and I don’t need to be ashamed that he was part of my story. I’m grateful for the ways God has brought me along since then.
And I can still crank up “Baba O’Riley.”
The wasteland wasn’t the end.