The Who Lyric That Sang the Praises of a Recreational Vehicle

Rock and roll and fancy vehicles have pretty much gone hand in hand since the dawn of the genre. But while we’ve heard plenty of songs paying tribute to high-end sports cars like Corvettes and Cadillacs, there haven’t been too many singing the praises of RVs.

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But that’s exactly what Pete Townshend had in mind when he wrote “Going Mobile”. The song suggests that being on the road is so beneficial that one might prefer never coming off of it.

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The reason for the implosion of The Who’s massive Lifehouse project might just depend on whose memoir you’re reading or which documentary you’re watching. Maybe The Who just couldn’t secure the funding. Or maybe Pete Townshend’s vision for it was too disjointed to get investors too excited about it in the first place.

In any case, The Who found themselves with a lot of unfinished material and a need to release some new music. Incredibly, they came away from the whole mess with Who’s Next, one of the greatest albums in rock history. Townshend’s Lifehouse songs ended up holding together quite well without any narrative running through them.

The band devoted much of the album to attention-grabbing, anthem-type tracks. But “Going Mobile” cops a more easygoing vibe. Townshend, who sings lead on the track, also handles the acoustic guitars that shuffle about the proceedings. John Entwistle and Keith Moon form a properly propulsive rhythm section for the subject matter.

Townshend had actually purchased his own mobile home not long before the song was created. That factored into his motive for writing “Going Mobile”, as did narrative necessities for the abandoned Lifehouse project.

Examining the Lyrics of “Going Mobile”

In the context of Lifehouse, “Going Mobile” represented the population’s need to get away in defiance of the orders of the government. Once freed from those connections, the song turned into one of the more upbeat tracks in the band’s history.

“I’m going home,” Townshend sings at the beginning. “And when I wanna go home, I’m going mobile.” As the song progresses, he makes it clear that home and the road are one and the same. “Keep me moving,” he insists.

Although Townshend was somewhat skeptical of the free-love generation at certain points of Who’s Next, he offers an all-inclusive experience on “Going Mobile”. “I can stop in any street,” he sings. “Invite in people that we meet.”

“Out in the woods or in the city,” he explains in one of the middle sections. “It’s all the same to me.” He can enjoy his “toast and tea” while on the move, and even his slumber is kinetic: “Well I can lie in bed with only highway ahead.” The narrator blithely ignores his environmental footprint. “I don’t care about pollution,” he admits. “I’m an air-conditioned gypsy.”

Leaving the law and the tax collectors behind, he moves on down the road. The destination isn’t some place on the map. The protagonist of “Going Mobile” has already located his freewheeling paradise, and he sees no need to alter course from the never-ending path straight ahead.

Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns