User:Franci9/Lifehouse

Lifehouse was a science fiction rock opera double album by The Who intended as a follow-up to Tommy. It was abandoned as a double album rock opera in favor of creating the traditional rock album, Who's Next, though its songs would appear on various Who albums, singles, and Pete Townshend solo albums. In 1978, the Lifehouse project was revived by John Entwistle with a slightly changed plot; it was scrapped and its remains are included on Who Are You.

In the year 2000, Townshend revived the Lifehouse concept with his set The Lifehouse Chronicles and the sampler The Lifehouse Elements. The Lifehouse Chronicles boxed set has six discs: two discs of music from the Lifehouse project, one disc of experiments and remixes of the Lifehouse songs, a disc of classical works by Townshend, Domenico Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, and Michel Corrette that were used in the Lifehouse radio play, and two discs containing the radio play itself. The radio play was also released separately on a double cassette.

Original concept
In 1969 The Who released Tommy and were set to carry it around the world. "Pete has recalled that on May 29, 1969 at the Grande Ballroom in Dearborn, Michigan, during the tour in which Tommy was first performed in the U.S., the audience – who’d had little opportunity to hear the album and therefore familiarize themselves with the music – rose at one point and remained standing, simply grooving to the music." Chris Charlesworth, "Live at Leeds" liner notes.

By this time Pete Townshend had started writing more meaningful songs and concepts. He began to use a theme of music throughout his three Who rock operas. The "Lifehouse" story was inspired by his experiences on the Tommy'' tour: "I’ve seen moments in Who gigs where the vibrations were becoming so pure that I thought the whole world was just going to stop, the whole thing was just becoming so unified." He believed that the vibrations could become so pure that the audience would "dance themselves into oblivion". Their souls would leave their bodies and they would be in a type of heaven; a permanent state of ecstasy. The only reason this did not happen at Who gigs was because there was a knowledge in the listener's mind that the show would end and everyone would wake up and go to work the next morning. These ideas were directly linked to the writing of philosopher Inayat Khan, a Sufi musician who had written about the connection of vibration and sound with the human spirit. Another source of inspiration for Townshend was Meher Baba, who claimed to be an avatar of Brahman (God).

What Townshend was aiming to achieve in Lifehouse was to write music that could be adapted to reflect the personalities of the audience. To do this he wanted to adapt his newly acquired hardware, VCS3 and ARP synthesizers and a quadraphonic PA, to create a machine capable of generating and combining personal music themes written from computerized biographical data. Ultimately, these thematic components would merge to form a "universal chor". To help this process, The Who would encourage individuals to emerge from the audience and find a role in the music. A minor example of this can be found on 'Disc Two: The Young Vic – Live', of "Who's Next" (Deluxe Edition)’. Hence "Audience Participation Rock Music": "About 400 people will be involved with us and we aim to play music which represents them." Pete Townshend, "Melody Maker" Jan 23 1971

The Lifehouse concept
The ‘Lifehouse’ idea was was a portentous science fiction film with Utopian Spiritual messages into which were to be grafted up lifting scenes from a real Who concert. Pete was selling a simple credo: Whatever happens in the future, rock ‘n’ roll will save the world.

Lifehouse began as a story written around several songs. Pete Townshend: "The essence of the story-line was a kind a futuristic scene…It’s a fantasy set at a time when rock ’n’ roll didn’t exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. They lived TV programs, in a way. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who’d kept rock ‘n’ roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle."

Under those circumstances, a very, very, very old guru figure emerges and says ‘I remember rock music. It was absolutely amazing—it really did something to people.’ He spoke of a kind of nirvana people reached through listening to this type of music. The old man decides that he’s going to try to set it up so that the effect can be experienced eternally. Everybody would be snapped out of their programmed environment through this rock and roll-induced liberated selflessness. The Lifehouse was where the music was played and where the young people would collect to discover rock music as a powerful catalyst—a religion as it were. "Then I began to feel ‘Well, why just simulate it? Why not try and make it happen?’"

The plan was for The Who to take over a theater The Young Vic with a regular audience, develop the new material onstage and allow the communal activity to influence the songs and performances. Individuals would emerge from the audience and find a role in the music and the film. When the concerts became strong enough, they would be filmed along with other peripheral activity from the theater. A story-line would evolve alongside the music. Although the finished film was to have many fictitious and scripted elements, the concert footage was to be authentic, and would provide the driving force for the whole production.

Pete went wild, working out a complex scenario whereby a personal profile of each concert-goer would be worked out, from the individual’s astrological chart to his hobbies, even physical appearance. All the characteristics would then be fed into a computer at the same moment, leading to one musical note culminating in mass nirvana that Pete dubbed ‘a kind of celestial cacophony.’ This philosophy was based on the writings of Inayat Khan, a Sufi master musician who espoused the theory that matter produces heat, light, and sound in the form of unique vibrations. Taking the idea one step further, making music, which was composed of vibrations, was the pervading force of all life. Elevating its purpose to the highest level, music represented the path to restoration, the search for the one perfect universal note, which once sounded would bring harmony to the entire world. Despite Pete’s grandiose plans, the project had its problems. The theater had its own schedule of drama productions, and wasn’t available on a regular nightly schedule that Townshend insisted was necessary for the band to sustain a "euphoric level" of performance. Pete: "The fatal flaw…was getting obsessed with trying to make a fantasy a reality rather than letting the film speak for itself." Eventually Pete had to let go of Lifehouse for his own sake.

Pete’s inability to translate the ideas in his head to those around him eventually led to a nervous breakdown. "It was a disaster." No one apart from himself actually understood the whole concept of Lifehouse. Kit Lambert, an integral part of the communication between the members of The Who, was missing. Pete had rejected a Tommy film script written by Lambert. Kit, dejected, frustrated and hurt, had moved to New York. With Tommy, Lambert had served as Townshend’s "interpreter," explaining "to the willing but befuddled people around me what I was on about." The film was indefinitely postponed until the album had been issued. The band went to Glyn Johns to produce their collection of songs, intended for a double album. They decided to shelf most of the songs in favor of a single album, hoping that it would have "a sharper focus and greater impact" than the concept of Lifehouse had become.

Plot summary
"Lifehouse" has three variations in its storyline:

Who's Next version
In the album, pollution is so bad that the populace are forced to wear Lifesuits, suits that could simulate all experiences in such a way that no one would have to leave home.

The suits are plugged into a huge mainframe called the Grid, similar to today's Internet, but which also contains tubes for sleeping gas, food, and entertainment; supposedly, someone could live out tens of thousands of lifetimes in a very short period within the Grid. The Grid is controlled by a man named Jumbo.

The story begins when a farming family in Scotland hear of a huge rock concert called Lifehouse occurring in London, a sort of post-apocalyptic Woodstock. Their daughter, Mary, runs away to join the concert. They don't wear Lifesuits because they are supposedly out of the pollution's range and they farm the crops that the government buys to feed the Lifesuiters. Bobby is the creator of Lifehouse; he is a hacker who broadcasts pirate radio signals advertising his concert, where the participants personal data are taken from them and converted into music, quite literally "finding your song". At the climax of the album, the authorities have surrounded the Lifehouse; then the perfect note rings forth through the combination of everybody's songs, they storm the place to find everybody has disappeared through a sort of musical Nirvana, and the people observing the concert through their lifesuits have vanished as well.

The song lists and there meanings:

Baba O'Riley

The slated opening of "Lifehouse." This song is a reference to the mental and spiritual pollution at the hands of the neo-fascist Big Brother government.

Baby Don't You Do It

Mary decides to leave her suit and go to the Theater instead of being plugged in via the Grid.

Bargain

About the search for personal identity amid a sea of conformity. This song is one of the most obvious examples of tunes that were written by Pete as a prayer to his spiritual mentor Meher Baba.

Behind Blue Eyes

About how the villain of "Lifehouse" feels on being forced to play a two-faced role, branded a bad guy when he feels that he is doing good.

Getting in Tune

Perhaps about gearing up for a show at the Lifehouse, and Bobby’s feelings for Mary.

Goin' Mobile

I Don't Even Know Myself

This song seems to be Townshend’s way of saying: listen, don’t try to judge me, to overanalyze me. How can you think that you have me figured out, when I can’t even figure myself out?

Join Together

Another central "Lifehouse" song, about the hopes that under the right circumstances, performer and audience would ‘join together’ and become one.

Let's See Action

Love Aint for Keeping

Mary

Naked Eye

Pure and Easy

The pivotal song of "Lifehouse." Much like Amazing Journey from "Tommy," Pure and Easy is the most important song of the concept, and embodies the main idea of "Lifehouse."

Put the Money Down

Lament about the lack of connection between the performer and the audience.

Relay

The Song is Over

The climax to "Lifehouse." Second to Pure and Easy with regards to importance in the "Lifehouse" concept.

Time is Passing

Too Much of Anything

Water

Won't Get Fooled Again

Tells of rebels being offered amnesty to abandon anarchic ways and join up with conventional forces, accepting the status quo and thereby receiving power in return. "The hero of the piece [Bobby]," states Townshend, "warns ‘Don’t be fooled, don’t get taken in.’" It’s tells of a revolution but ends by stating that revolution doesn’t really change anything.

Who Are You version
Set two hundred years after the events in the Who's Next version, this tells the story of another attempt at a lifehouse concert. The concert holders are helped by "muso", a cult that worships music, and are hated by plusbond, the group that runs the Grid and the Lifesuits.

Lifehouse Chronicles version
Ray and Sally are farmers who grow, as Sally said, "dead potatoes". Their daughter, Mary, runs away from home to visit a hacker whom has fascinated her with pirated radio advertisements. Ray goes to try to find his lost child, along the way meeting his childhood self, Rayboy, and his imaginary friend, the caretaker.

Intended Track Listing
Below is the Track Listing of Lifehouse as shown on Pete Townshend's webstite under The Lifehouse Chronicles. In parentheses is the original album by the Who that the song appeared on. All songs were composed by Pete Townshend.

1. Teenage Wasteland (Never Performed By The Who)

2. Going Mobile (Who's Next)

3. Baba O'Riley (Who's Next)

4. Time Is Passing (Odds & Sods [Remastered])

5. Love Ain't For Keepin' (Who's Next)

6. Bargain (Who's Next)

7. Too Much Of Anything (Odds & Sods)

8. Music Must Change (Who Are You)

9. Greyhound Girl (Encore Series 2006)

10. Mary (Never Performed By The Who)

11. Behind Blue Eyes (Who's Next)

12. Sister Disco (Who Are You)

13. I Don't Even Know Myself (Who's Next [Remastered])

14. Put The Money Down (Odds & Sods)

15. Pure And Easy (Odds & Sods)

16. Gettin' In Tune (Who's Next)

17. Let's See Action (Orignally A "Non-Album Single")

18. Slip Kid (The Who By Numbers)

19. Relay (Originally A "Non-Album Single")

20. Who Are You (Who Are You)

21. Join Together (Originally A "Non-Album Single")

22. Won't Get Fooled Again (Who's Next)

23. The Song Is Over (Who's Next)

Other related albums
This list includes other related albums by The Who, and by Pete Townshend, as well as other albums that inspired Pete Townshend, albums which highlight the music scene at the time, and albums which follow a similar concept.

The Beatles - "Let It Be".

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait.

Elton John - Elton John & Tumbleweed Connection. 

Free - Fire and Water

Thunderclap Newman - Hollywood Dream

The Who - Who's Next

The Who - Who's Next (Deluxe Edition)

Alice Cooper - Killer. Alice Cooper played with The Who at the opening of the Rainbow Theatre

John Entwistle - Smash Your Head Against the Wall

Stevie Wonder - Music of My Mind & Talking Book. At the time Stevie Wonder was the only other artist to experiment with synthesizers in the same way as Pete Townshend.

Pete Townshend - Who Came First. Pete Townshend's versions of some of the songs from Lifehouse.

The Who - Odds & Sods. Left over Who songs from Lifehouse that weren't released on Who's Next.

The Who - The Who By Numbers. Features Slip Kid, a new song written for Lifehouse.

The Who - Who Are You A new, rewritten version of Lifehouse. See the plot summary.

The Who - Join Together.

Pete Townshend - Psychoderelict. Psychoderelict is not Lifehouse, but an album written about the Grid. The two stories are closely related.

Pete Townshend - Live BAM 1993. Psychoderelict live and other songs from the past.

Pete Townshend - The Lifehouse Chronicles. 

Pete Townshend - Lifehouse Elements. 'Best of' the above.

Pete Townshend - Live: Sadlers Wells/Music from Lifehouse.

Intended Personnel

 * Pete Townshend - primary songwriter, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, synthesizers, sound effects, banjo, piano, organ, harmony vocals, backup vocals, and lead vocals, among other things
 * John Entwistle - secondary songwriter, bass guitar, trumpet, French horn, saxophone, tuba, seussephone, slap bass, wood bass, backup vocals
 * Keith Moon - drums, percussion, tamborine, xylaphone, vibraphone, bongos, bass drums, snare drums, cymbals, backup vocals
 * Roger Daltrey - vocals