Per the first source...

Pete Townshend wrote this song as part of his Lifehouse Project. He wanted to release a double-album and film about a world where the people are oppressed, but saved by a rock concert. Part of Townshend's wish was to show the power of music and how it reflects the people. "Won't Get Fooled Again" is about a revolution. In the first verse, there is an uprising. In the middle, the rebels overthrow those in power, but in the end, the new regime becomes just like the old one ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss").

Per the second source...

Pete Townshend wrote this song about a revolution. In the first verse, there is an uprising. In the middle, they overthrow those in power, but in the end, the new regime becomes just like the old one ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss").

Townshend felt revolution was pointless because whoever takes over is destined to become corrupt. In Townshend: A Career Biography, Pete explained that the song was anti-establishment, but that "revolution is not going to change anything in the long run, and people are going to get hurt."

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.

Townshend wrote this as part of his "Lifehouse" project. He wanted to release a film about a futuristic world where the people are enslaved, but saved by a rock concert. Townshend couldn't get enough support to finish the project, but most of the songs he wrote were used on the Who's Next album.

In a 1985 "My Generation" radio special, Pete Townshend said he wrote the song as a message to the supposedly "new breed" of politicians who came around in the early '70s.

Townshend (from Rolling Stone magazine): "It's interesting it's been taken up in an anthemic sense when in fact it's such a cautionary piece." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won't_Get_Fooled_Again
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1532


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