Notes and Quotes: "I Can See for Miles"

Townshend: I sat down and made it good from the beginning. The fact that I did a lot of work on arrangements doesn't really count. You know, you can do all kinds of incredible things to it, but you're never gonna get it, not unless the meat and potatoes are there. (Marsh 1983: 273)

Townshend [on the recording's poor chart success]: That was the real heartbreaker for me.... It was the number we'd been saving, thinking that if the Who ever got into trouble, that would be the one that would pull us out. The Who did a marvelous performance on it; in my opinion, Kit did an incredible production; and we got a marvelous pressing of it. It reached number seventeen in the charts, and the day I saw it was about to go down without reaching any higher, I spat on the British record buyer. To me it was the ultimate Who record, yet it didn't sell. (As told to Ray Tolliday) (Marsh 1983: 274)

Townshend: People may have thought that "I Can See for Miles" was about acid..., but it wasn't in my mind. It's the case of the writer being taken for something he didn't say or rather mean. (Neill and Kent 2002: 128)

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21 March, 2012