"Won't get fooled again": lyrics question, prayer, revolution..and The Nisaan Effect

PHOTO CREDIT

I am not sure the original  inspiration and Sitz Im Leben of the song can definitively discerned, as  it was a centerpiece (climax?) of The Lifehouse Project  and storyline...which never officially happened (See "Keltic Ken @ the Super Bowl, St Pete's Lifehouse, and the New Boss of Emerging Church").


Speaking of Keltic Ken, he's right again...this time about the song at hand:

"an interesting prophetic statement that seems to carry more weight in 2010 than when we first heard it in 1971."  Keltic Ken

The song is strangely timeless and timely.

Whether or not it's about how the British Labor Party used students to protest and help them win parliamentary elections in 1970 (as many  have quoted the writer as saying) doesn't ultimately matter,
as the song resonates universally...as it is at heart about the promise and peril of revolution/reformation..

...and the power and promise of prayer.

I think Pete Townshend, when he wrote "I get on my knees and pray," meant it. He was praying the title of this epic: "We Won't Get Fooled Again."  Whoever has designs of fooling us--politicians,
religionists, Nisaan (more on that amazing irony in a minute!)---he not only would refuse it,  but would pray God to defuse it.

I love how singer Roger Daltrey emphasizes the resolve to pray by repeating the lyric in an early  New York studio version by repeating it in the outro.

Since I no longer have the original record album with lyric sheet, all these decades later, I am still not sure what the  lyrics are on one of the key lines.

An online search presents these options:

"We were liberated from the fall, that's all"
"We were liberated from the four minute song"
"We were liberated from the fold, that's all"

Of course, I love the first for the profound theological implications, but it has the least amount of Google returns (2,000 plus)...but I can still pray for it to be true (:

The second option is hilarious, profound, even prophetic. (4,000 returns)
Th third will preach...as moving from bounded to centered-setness, and has 9,000 returns.
You decide...but I decide to sing "the fall"  (:

Okay, I decided to google the line in "Misheard lyrics," and found:

"We were liberated from the Rolling Stones"

That will preach, too...but no cigar.

However, the poster there offers the real lyric as "we were liberated from the foe"...whoa.
(3,000 Google returns)

Here are some intriguing quotes:

"The synthesizer represents the revolution. It builds at the beginning when the uprising starts, and comes back at the end when a new revolution is brewing."  (Song Facts)


"The first verse makes it sound like a revolution song, and the second like someone getting tired of it. It's anti-anti. A song against the revolution because a revolution is just a revolution and isn't going to change anything at all in the long run, and a lot of people will be hurt.  (attr. to Townsend, Song Meanings)


"Townshend in 1985  explained it was written at a time when revolutionary organisations and campaigners were active on the fringes of youth culture and some faction had apparently approached the Who to raise funds to 'buy guns'(!!). Townshend was 'anti-political' in his view of of the world, seeing some combination of rock music and mysticism as the way forward!"  (Song Facts)

"It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense when in fact it's such a cautionary piece."
(attr. to Townsend, Song Meanings)


"Please don't make ME on the stage the new boss. y'know cause I'm just the same as the guy who was up here before"  (attr, Townsend)

"Won't Get Fooled Again" is a song by the rock band The Who. Written by Pete Townshend, it combines guitar power chords with heavily processed organ and synthesizer sounds to create a textured, atmospheric introduction that explodes into the verse. It is based upon the idea of revolution, somewhat cynically portraying the hope surrounding the concept – "I tip my hat to the new constitution/Take a bow for the new revolution" – and the disappointment that the new regime is the same as the old one – "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss".   -Wikipedia


Townshend stated in 2006 that: "It is not precisely a song that decries revolution – it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets – but that revolution, like all action can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything. The song was meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause. [...] From 1971 – when I wrote Won't Get Fooled Again – to 1985, there was a transition in me from refusal to be co-opted by activists, to a refusal to be judged by people I found jaded and compliant in Thatcher's Britain."^[4]
--Wikipedia
^- 

"In its May 26, 2006 issue, the conservative National Review magazine published a list of 'The 50 greatest conservative rock songs.' 'Won't Get Fooled Again' was ranked song number one. Pete Townsend responded on his blog as follows:
'It is not precisely a song that decries revolution - it suggests that we will indeed fight in the streets - but that revolution, like all action can have results we cannot predict. Don't expect to see what you expect to see. Expect nothing and you might gain everything.' Townsend then goes on to explain that the song was simply ''Meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the center of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause.' (Song Facts)

Okay..this paves the way for the Nisaan Effect,  Keep that line "not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause" focused, and read on:


"The song was used in commercials for the 2000 Nissan Maxima. Some people considered this the biggest sell-out in Rock, but The Who made lots of money in the deal. The same year, Nissan used The Who's 'Baba O'Reily'  in an ad for their Pathfinder. " (Song Facts)

Enjoy






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UPDATE:
Lyrics mystery solved: