Baba O’Riley, Further Comment
Yes, it’s a long tune, at 5 minutes. Did you notice the organ track, the musical pattern that opens and runs the entire length of the piece? Townsend was influenced by the philosophy of Meher Baba, Inayat Kahn, and composer Terry Riley. Townsend sought to replicate a theory of reality as harmonious, with the notion that individual biographical information, when fed into a computer driven synthesizer could create a musical portrait–which could be woven into mass, extended harmonic webs. The keyboard pattern runs through the entire song. Townsends point is no less than redemption through music. Individual musical portraits played simultaneously, overlap, interlock, producing a harmonious whole. Reality is at it’s foundations harmonious, and the common thread within all of us, the human, is harmonious with the whole.
As a theory does it work? Does it have cash value? Or is it just another antique piece of 60s blissed-out- blue-sky-nonsense?
Well, when you listen to the song,–does it work for you?
