1971 · Behind the Songs
A guru, a minimalist and the most famous keyboard riff in rock.
“Baba O’Riley” opens Who’s Next with the most recognizable keyboard pattern in rock — a pulsing loop that sounds like a machine and feels like a sunrise. Its title honors two unlikely heroes: Meher Baba, the Indian spiritual master Pete Townshend followed, and Terry Riley, the minimalist composer whose repetitive music inspired the riff.
Townshend wrote the song for Lifehouse, his abandoned multimedia project, and recorded the demo at home before the band cut it in the studio. The famous opening was played on a Lowrey organ using its marimba-repeat setting, then fed through the studio’s electronics until it pulsed like a sequencer — years before sequencers were common in rock. When the full band crashes in, with Keith Moon’s drums and John Entwistle’s bass, the effect is still startling.
The song was never released as a single in Britain or America, yet it became one of the most-played tracks on rock radio — the “teenage wasteland” heard everywhere from stadiums to television themes. It closes with an unlikely grace note: a folk violin solo by Dave Arbus of the band East of Eden, sawing away over Moon’s thunder.
What to listen for: the organ loop, building for nearly a minute before Daltrey sings a note; the shift from machine to band; and that violin coda, the wasteland blooming at the very end.