Sunday, August 02, 2020

The Who: I Can't Explain


This was The Who's first single under that name - up till then they had recorded as The High Numbers.

Wikipedia is enlightening of the song's genesis
In the album's liner notes, [Pete] Townshend noted the song's similarity to the contemporaneous hit "All Day and All of the Night" by the Kinks: "It can't be beat for straightforward Kink copying. There is little to say about how I wrote this. It came out of the top of my head when I was 18 and a half." In a 1994 issue of Q magazine, Roger Daltrey echoed Townshend's comments regarding the Kinks' influence: 
We already knew Pete could write songs, but it never seemed a necessity in those days to have your own stuff because there was this wealth of untapped music that we could get hold of from America. But then bands like the Kinks started to make it, and they were probably the biggest influence on us – they were certainly a huge influence on Pete, and he wrote 'I Can't Explain', not as a direct copy, but certainly it's very derivative of Kinks music.
The entry also comes to the conclusion that Jimmy Page is playing rhythm guitar here but the lead is all Peter Townshend.

Hey teenagers! If you like this then check out Substitute, The Kids Are Alright and I'm a Boy.

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