Behind Blue Eyes

"Behind Blue Eyes" is written from the perspective of a man who is hated and shunned. He's asking for empathy, but is clearly unhinged and seems to have anger issues. The lyrics are based on The Who guitarist Pete Townshend's own feeling of angst, that no one knows what it's like to be him, with high expectations and pressure to be someone he's not.

Pete Townshend originally wrote this song about a character in his Lifehouse project, which was going to be a film similar to The Who's Tommy and Quadrophenia. Townshend never finished Lifehouse, but the songs ended up on the album Who's Next. In Lifehouse, it was going to soundtrack a villain named Jumbo.

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey both have blue eyes, but the song is not purely autobiographical. Townshend has said that he wrote it to show "how lonely it is to be powerful."