The first part of the title comes from Meher Baba, who was Pete Townshend's spiritual guru. The second part comes from Terry Riley, an experimental, minimalist composer Townshend admired - many of the keyboard riffs and sound effects on Who's Next were a result of Riley's influence. According to the Who's Next liner notes, Townshend wrote it as his vision of what would happen if the spirit of Meher Baba was fed into a computer and transformed into music. The result would be Baba in the style of Terry Riley, or "Baba O'Riley."
Pete Townshend spent a few weeks in his home studio putting together the part that sounds like a synthesizer on a Lowry organ. His goal: to create "a replication of the electronic music of the future."
Lyrics
I'm here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven
Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland
Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland
Shall I take my hand
Travel south cross the land
Put out the fire and don't look past my shoulder
The accidents is here
The happy water is here
Let's get together before we get much older
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
They are all wasting
I'm here in the fields I fight for my meals I get back into my living I don't need to fight To prove I'm right I don't need to be forgiven
Songwriters: Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend Baba O'Riley lyrics © Essex Italiana Edizioni Musicali S.r.l., FABULOUS MUSIC LTD, ABKCO MUSIC INC PETE TOWNSHEND CATALOG, UNIVERSAL MUSIC-CAREERS OBO TOWSER TUNES INC, SPIRIT ONE MUSIC OBO TOWSER TUNES, TOWSER TUNES, INC.