Baba O'Riley

Baba O'Riley by The Who



What a song. Seriously, what a great effing song. And one of the most underrated album openers of all time. Baba is a top three album opener, but it always seems to be forgotten in that discussion (I just made that discussion up I think).

Anyway, an amazing song at any point in the day. It progresses beautifully, then Pete slows it down a bit for us, breaks it down, I've always loved the violin at the end of the song. The electric piano that kicks everything off is pretty sweet too (though this guy doesn't like it). One of the best Who songs.

In 8th grade, Andrew* and I were listening to the radio in my basement in the 'Dale. I'm not sure why or what we were doing—though there was a good chance we were playing hockey. Anyway, after hearing about five crappy songs (in our opinion) on the oldies station, we decided that we were going to call up and ask them to play a song that "is good but never gets radio play". After getting through to Oldies104.3, I requested "Baba O'Riley" and hung up... thinking I had played a fast one on the radio station.

Twelve odd years later and countless radio plays of "Baba O'Riley" later, I clearly didn't.


*Get well, buddy.