The set contains song demos by Pete Townshend; including solo versions of "Baba O'Riley", "Won't Get Fooled Again", and "Who Are You", and the Lifehouse Radio Program.

The set collects songs and other compositions relating to Lifehouse, a musical concept developed by Townshend in 1970 as a follow-up to The Who's highly successful rock opera, Tommy.

Despite the best efforts of the fascist government, thousands of people gather at the Hacker's concert, with millions more watching through their suits, as the musicians and audience perform experimental songs like those described above.

Just as the police storm in and shoot the Hacker, the audience and band manage simultaneously to produce the perfect universal tone, The One Note, and everyone participating in and watching the concert simply vanishes, presumably having departed for a higher plane of existence.

Rather than attempting to tell the story through the lyrics, as he had done with Tommy, the songs were stand-alone pieces, meant to be elucidated by the movie and detailed sleeve notes to be included with the album.

Most of those songs were recorded by the Who in two sessions in the winter of 1970/1971, as well as several "rehearsals" accompanied by guitarist Leslie West of the band Mountain and an impromptu live concert at the Young Vic Theatre in London in April 1971.

Universal Studios, which had recently inked a two-film deal with the Who for the rights to a film version of Tommy, was not impressed by the screenplay Townshend offered them.

Townshend stated in his introduction that he eventually hoped to release an expanded version of the set, to be titled "The Lifehouse Method", which would include software for producing a synthesizer track based on the user's vital statistics.