On June 25, 1971, The Who released the lead single off their fifth studio album, Who’s Next. The track, titled “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, would quickly become an anthem for not only the band. But it also spoke to the same crowd who identified with “My Generation” six years earlier. These songs were cut from the same unapologetically defiant cloth, and listeners internalized them in similar ways.
Ironically, the generation that used these songs as their de facto anthems became a target in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”.
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Pete Townshend Wrote “Won’t Get Fooled Again” After This Tense Woodstock Incident
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair might have helped propel The Who into international stardom. But that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone was having a great time. Pete Townshend has long been outspoken about how much he disliked tromping around in the mud and rain. And he didn’t have particularly fond feelings for the hippie movement in general, either.
During The Who’s set, political activist Abbie Hoffman took to the stage to air his grievances about the festival taking place amid ongoing political turmoil elsewhere in the country. Townshend could technically agree with Hoffman’s sentiments. But he didn’t appreciate Hoffman using his band’s time as an opportunity to share his opinions. Townshend eventually pushed Hoffman off toward the wings with his guitar.
Speaking to Creem about the incident (and hippies in general) in 1982, Townshend said, “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!’ All those hippies wandering about, thinking the world was going to be different from that day. As a cynical English arsehold, 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” (via Classic Rock).
The Iconic Anthem Would Be the Last Song Keith Moon Played Live
Almost seven years to the date that The Who released “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, drummer Keith Moon played the song live with the band for the last time. The band performed an “intimate” set (“intimate,” at that point in their career, meaning 300 people) at Shepperton Studios in London on May 25, 1978. The three-song set included “Baba O’Riley”, “My Wife”, and ended with “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, as most of their live shows did.
Around this time, The Who was recording their eighth studio album, Who Are You. When the album came out in mid-August, the band opted to do a round of promotional interviews instead of touring. Then, on September 6, Keith Moon accidentally overdosed on clomethiazole pills. He was taking them to curb his alcohol withdrawal symptoms. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” would be the last song The Who, as its original lineup, ever performed together.
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