Won't Get Fooled Again
by The Who
- 136
- BPM
- D major
- Key
- 10B
- Camelot
- 71
- Danceability
- 26
- Acousticness
In March 1971 the Who were in New York, at the Record Plant on West 44th Street, trying to record "Won't Get Fooled Again" for the first time. Felix Pappalardi did most of the production work, with Leslie West on lead guitar, but manager Kit Lambert could not mix the track. At the start of April they tried again at Stargroves, Mick Jagger's house, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Glyn Johns, brought in to help, reused the synthesized organ track from Pete Townshend's demo, since the one re-recorded in New York sounded worse. Keith Moon had to lock his drumming to it carefully.
The take was meant as a demo, but it sounded so good that the band kept it. Townshend played a Gretsch hollow body that Joe Walsh had given him in New York. He added acoustic guitar at Olympic Studios at the end of April. Johns mixed it on May 28.
Townshend had written the song to end Lifehouse, a rock opera that was never finished. It came out as a single on June 25, 1971, cut to 3:35, and the full version closed Who's Next that August. The single reached the top 10 in the UK and number 15 in the US.
Won't Get Fooled Again runs at 136 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.76 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 441 ms. It is in D major, Camelot 10B, which shares its notes with B minor and mixes cleanly with G major and A major.
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