Peak
15
Weeks
13
Score
1,891
Chart Year
1971
Pete Townshend wrote this song about a revolution. In the first verse, there is an uprising. In the middle, they overthrow those in power, but in the end, the new regime becomes just like the old one ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"). Townshend felt revolution was pointless because whoever takes over is destined to become corrupt. In Townshend: A Career Biography, Pete explained that the song was antiestablishment, but that "revolution is not going to change anything in the long run, and people are going to get hurt." The synthesizer represents the revolution. It builds at the beginning when the uprising starts, and comes back at the end when a new revolution is brewing. The title never appears in the lyric, which goes: I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again Townshend wrote this as part of his "Lifehouse" project. He wanted to release a film about a futuristic world where the people are enslaved, but saved by a rock concert. Townshend couldn't get enough support to finish the project, but most of the songs he wrote were used on the Who's Next album. Roger Daltrey's scream is considered one of the best on any rock song. It was quite a convincing wail - so convincing that the rest of the band, lunching nearby, thought Daltrey was brawling with the engineer. The album version runs 8:30. The single was shortened to 3:35 so radio stations would play it. Daltrey was unhappy about the editing. He recalled to Uncut magazine: "I hated it when they chopped it down. I used to say 'F--k it, put it out as eight minutes', but there'd always be some excuse about not fitting it on or some technical thing at the pressing plant." "After that we started to lose interest in singles because they'd cut them to bits," Daltrey added. "We thought, 'What's the point? Our music's evolved past the three-minute barrier and if they can't accommodate that we're just gonna have to live on albums.'" In a 1985 "My Generation" radio special, Pete Townshend said he wrote the song as a message to the supposedly "new breed" of politicians who came around in the early '70s. This is the last song on the album. It was also the last song they played at their concerts for many years. This was one of the first times a synthesizer was used in the rhythm track. When they played this live, they had to play the synthesizer part off tape. Townshend (from Rolling Stone magazine): "It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense when in fact it's such a cautionary piece." >> Pete Townshend lived on Eel Pie Island in Richmond, London, when he wrote this song. There was an active commune on the Island at the time situated in what used to be a hotel. According to Townshend, this commune was an influence on the song. "There was like a love affair going on between me an them," he said. "They dug me because I was like a figurehead in a group, and I dug them because I could see what was going on over there. At one point there was an amazing scene where the commune was really working, but then the acid started flowing and I got on the end of some psychotic conversations." The Woodstock festival was an influence on this song. Most songs inspired by Woodstock follow the peace and love narrative, but Pete Townshend had a very different take. The Who played Day 2 of Woodstock, going on at the ludicrous hour of 5 a.m. During their set, the activist Abbie Hoffman came on stage unannounced and commandeered the microphone. Townshend may or may not have belted him with his guitar, but he certainly did not want to provide a platform for any cause. "I wrote 'Won't Get Fooled Again' as a reaction to all that - 'Leave me out of it: I don't think you lot would be any better than the other lot!,'" he explained to Creem in 1982. In the same interview, he shared his thoughts on the festival crowd: "All those hippies wandering about thinking the world was going to be different from that day. As a cynical English arsehole I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them, and shaking them and trying to make them realize that nothing had changed and nothing was going to change." This song was played by the remaining members of the band at "The Concert for New York City," a fundraising concert in the wake of the devastating attacks on September 11, 2001. Daltrey omitted the last line of the song: "Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss." >> Part of this song is used in the opening sequence of the CBS TV series CSI: Miami, which launched in 2002. This was the first spin-off from CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which went on the air in 2000 with "Who Are You?" as the theme song. Every subsequent CSI featured a song by The Who: CSI: NY used "Baba O'Riley," and CSI: Cyber went with "I Can See For Miles." Roger Daltrey could sing "My Generation" for five decades without complaint, but not this one. "That's the only song I'm bloody bored s--tless with," he told Rolling Stone in 2018. In The Simpsons episode "A Tale of Two Springfields," Homer forms "New Springfield" and gets The Who to play there. Pete Townshend blasts the wall between old and new Springfield by blasting the guitar riff from this song. >> In its May 26, 2006 issue, the conservative National Review magazine published a list of "The 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs," ranking "Won't Get Fooled Again" at #1. Pete Townshend responded on his blog as follows: "It is not precisely a song that decries revolution - it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets - but that revolution, like all action can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything." Townsend goes on to explain that the song was simply "meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the center of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause." >> Pete Townshend refused Michael Moore permission to use this song in his 2004 anti-George W. Bush documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, citing the left wing filmaker as a "bully." This was used in commercials for the 2000 Nissan Maxima. Some people considered this the biggest sellout in rock, but The Who made lots of money in the deal. The same year, Nissan used The Who's "Baba O'Reily" in an ad for their Pathfinder. DJs like to play this as their last song before leaving a particular radio station because of the line "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" - a snub directed at station management because they might not be leaving on the friendliest terms. >> This was played in Super Bowl XLI (2007) as the Indianapolis Colts came out of the locker room. The Colts won the game. >>
We'll be fighting in the streets With our children at our feet And the morals that they worship will be gone And the men who spurred us on Sit in judgement of all wrong They decide and the shotgun sings the song I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again A change, it had to come We knew it all along We were liberated from the fold, that's all And the world looks just the same And history ain't changed 'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again, no, no I'll move myself and my family aside If we happen to be left half-alive I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky For I know that the hypnotized never lie Do you? Yeah There's nothing in the street Looks any different to me And the slogans are effaced, by-the-bye And the parting on the left Is now parting on the right And the beards have all grown longer overnight I'll tip my hat to the new Constitution Take a bow for the new revolution Smile and grin at the change all around Pick up my guitar and play Just like yesterday Then I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again Don't get fooled again, no, no Yeah Meet the new boss Same as the old boss
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jul 17, 1971 | 76 | 50 |
| 2 | Jul 24, 1971 | 57 | 69 |
| 3 | Jul 31, 1971 | 49 | 77 |
| 4 | Aug 7, 1971 | 39 | 87 |
| 5 | Aug 14, 1971 | 34 | 92 |
| 6 | Aug 21, 1971 | 30 | 96 |
| 7 | Aug 28, 1971 | 23 | 103 |
| 8 | Sep 4, 1971 | 20 | 106 |
| 9 | Sep 11, 1971 | 16 | 110 |
| 10 | Sep 18, 1971 | 15 | 111 |
| 11 | Sep 25, 1971 | 15 | 111 |
| 12 | Oct 2, 1971 | 26 | 100 |
| 13 | Oct 9, 1971 | 33 | 93 |