The Who has more than a handful of great songs, but Roger Daltrey made it clear which five from their discography are his favourites.
The Who frontman featured a “wonderful” lesser-known track amid his favourites, which likely overlap with many fans’ picks for best songs from the group. Breaking down the five songs he chose, Daltrey would suggest that one of the best songs the band ever made is I Can’t Explain, a song featured on the band’s debut album, My Generation. Speaking to Uncut Magazine back in 2002, Daltrey would suggest not only I Can’t Explain was a favourite of his, but My Generation, I Can See for Miles, and two later tracks were among the best from The Who. Speaking of I Can’t Explain, Daltrey said they had a furious studio session and Jimmy Page was in the room for the song.
Daltrey said: “Well, it’s that thing – ‘I got a feeling inside, I can’t explain’ – it’s rock’n’roll. The more we try to explain it, the more we crawl up our own arses and disappear! I was very proud of that record. That was us, y’know – it was an original song by Pete and it captured that energy and that testosterone that we had in those days. It still does.
“When we turned up to record it there was this other guitarist in the studio – Jimmy Page. And he’d brought in three backing vocalists, which was another shock. He must have discussed it with our management, but not with us, so we were thrown at first, thinking, ‘What the fuck’s going on here?’ But it was his way of recording.”
Another selection from Daltrey was My Generation, with the veteran rocker detailing how he used his stutter to his advantage. He said: “I have got a stutter. I control it much better now, but not in those days. When we were in the studio doing My Generation, Kit Lambert came up to me and said, ‘STUTTER!’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Stutter the words – it makes it sound like you’re pilled’
“And I said, ‘Oh… like I am!’ And that’s how it happened. It was always in there, it was always suggested with the ‘f-f-fade’ but the rest of it was improvised. But… it’s a fucking great record, it really is.”
The third song to be chosen by Daltrey was I Can See for Miles, which was described by The Who frontman as “one of the best-produced singles we ever did.” He continued: “We spent literally a whole day putting down layer and layer of harmonies on the ‘miles and miles’ section. I always loved that song, and you listen to the drumming on it, it’s extraordinary – like a steam engine.”
His fourth choice was Pinball Wizard, with Daltrey full of praise for Kit Lambert’s “absolutely tremendous” production. He said: “The whole montage of sounds he got in emulating the pinball machine is extraordinary. I don’t think he got enough recognition for his work on that.
“Not necessarily the sound he got – because most of the time making Tommy we were out of our boxes, God knows what we were doing – but the actual arrangements and the ideas, the harmonies and the structures.”
Daltrey’s final song choice was the “wonderful” You Better, You Bet, a song which released just a few years before The Who disbanded for the first time. He said: “A wonderful, wonderful song. The way the vocal bounces, it always reminds me of Elvis. But it was a difficult time, yeah.
“The Moon carry-on was much harder than carrying on after John because we’re more mature now. I hate going over this but, in retrospect, we did make the wrong choice of drummers. Kenney Jones – don’t get me wrong, a fantastic drummer – but he completely threw the chemistry of the band. It just didn’t work; the spark plug was missing from the engine.
“The first tour Kenney did with us, though, he was absolutely fucking brilliant. But after that, he settled into what he knew, which was his Faces-type drumming, which doesn’t work with The Who. In some ways I’d like to go back and re-record a lot of the songs on Face Dances, but You Better, You Bet is still one of my favourite songs of all.
