Where To Begin?

Many fans of "The Who" may have already heard of "Lifehouse" before. For those that haven't, or need a recap:
After their first rock-opera "Tommy" became such a huge success Pete Townshend had something really big in mind. Pete felt as though he had felt that there were times "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." 


Based off of this gut feeling Pete got the inspiration to start a multi-dimensional project which he would later name "Lifehouse". This project was so complex and so ambitious that he was never able to properly explain it to anyone. One of the easier to grasp elements that was to be incorporated into Lifehouse was a plain and simple Rock-Opera similar to the Who's last album, "Tommy."  Many songs from the Lifehouse-Opera were released in later The Who's subsequent studio albums, most notably "Who's Next" and "Who Are You" ;  Townshend's solo works, such as "Who Came First" and "Scoop";  and several rarity compilations such as "Hooligans"  and "Who's Missing".


The basic storyline of the Lifehouse Opera is as follows:
"A self-sufficient, drop-out family group farming in a remote part of Scotland decide to return South to investigate rumours of a subversive concert event that promises to shake and wake up apathetic, fearful British society. Ray is married to Sally, they hope to link up with their daughter Mary who has run away from home to attend the concert. They travel through the scarred wasteland of middle England in a motor caravan, running an air-conditioner they hope will protect them from pollution. They listen, furtively, to old rock records which they call 'Trad'. Up to this time they have survived as farmers, tolerated by the government who are glad to buy most of their produce. Those who have remained in urban areas suffer repressive curfews and are more-or-less forced to survive in special suits, like space-suits, to avoid the extremes of pollution that the government reports. 


These suits are interconnected in a universal grid, a little like the modern Internet, but combined with gas-company pipelines and cable-television-company wiring. The grid is operated by an imperious media conglomerate headed by a dictatorial figure called Jumbo who appears to be more powerful than the government that first appointed him. The grid delivers its clients' food, medicine and sleeping gas. But it also keeps them entertained with lavish programming so highly compressed that the subject can 'live out' thousands of virtual lifetimes in a short space of time. The effect of this dense exposure to the myriad dreamlike experiences provided by the controllers of the grid is that certain subjects begin to fall apart emotionally. Either they believe they have become spiritually advanced, or they feel suffocated by what feels like the shallowness of the programming, or its repetitiveness. A vital side-issue is that the producers responsible for the programming have ended up concentrating almost entirely on the story-driven narrative form, ignoring all the arts unrestrained by 'plot' as too complex and unpredictable, especially music. Effectively, these arts appear to be banned. In fact, they are merely proscribed, ignored, forgotten, no longer of use. 


A young composer called Bobby hacks into the grid and offers a festival-like music concert - called The Lifehouse - which he hopes will impel the audience to throw off their suits (which are in fact no longer necessary for physical survival) and attend in person. 'Come to the lifehouse, your song is here'. 


The family arrive at the concert venue early and take part in an experiment Bobby conducts in which each participant is both blueprint and inspiration for a unique piece of music or song which will feature largely in the first event to be hacked onto the grid. 


When the day of the concert arrives a small army force gathers to try to stop the show. They are prevented from entering for a while, the concert begins, and indeed many of those 'watching at home' are inspired to leave their suits. But eventually the army break in. As they do so, Bobby's musical experiment reaches its zenith and everyone in the building, dancing in a huge dervish circle, suddenly disappears. It emerges that many of the audience at home, participating in their suits, have also disappeared."
-Source: http://www.thewho.net/linernotes/WhosNext.htm


In 2000, Pete Townshend released "The Lifehouse Chronicles" a six CD set which is essentially a culmination of all of the material both released and unreleased up to that point dealing with the Lifehouse project. The first two discs of the set contain the original songs intended for the project, listed in order to their place chronologically within the story. The track listing is as follows:


Disc one
Teenage Wasteland*
Going Mobile
Baba O'Riley
Time is Passing
Love Ain't for Keeping
Bargain
Too Much of Anything
Music Must Change
Greyhound Girl*
Mary
Behind Blue Eyes
Baba O'Riley (Instrumental)*
Sister Disco


Disc two
I Don't Even Know Myself
Put the Money Down
Pure And Easy
Getting in Tune
Let's See Action
Slip Kid
Relay
Who Are You
Join Together
Won't Get Fooled Again
The Song Is Over
*(song unreleased up until Lifehouse Chronicles)


This blog is my attempt at trying to solve the mystery behind The Lifehouse storyline via a song by song analysis compared to the story-line described above. Like the Who's other two rock Operas, Lifehouse may be hard to interpret on it's own, so I can't guarantee that any of my assumptions are correct. Another hindrance to this attempt is that I do not currently have money to spend on a $150 boxset collection, so while most of the songs can be heard on other albums, and the Lifehouse Chronicles only songs can be found courtesy of youtube, I may be missing out on valuable insight provided by additional materials that may or may not be provided that might give further insight. Feedback is encouraged. I'd like to hear everyone else's interpretations of the songs provided here.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_(rock_opera)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lifehouse_Chronicles
http://www.thewho.net/linernotes/WhosNext.htm


Thanks to: http://www.thewallanalysis.com/ for the inspiration.