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Fri 31 October 2025 9:42, UK
The Who‘s Pete Townshend has made many predictions throughout his career, and while he’s adept in a recording studio or parading on stage, he is less talented at looking into the future. Despite what his many interviews may allude to, Townshend isn’t quite the all-seeing rock deity he might sometimes believe he is.
His most wildly significant incorrect prophecy came when he believed one single by the band was destined to become “the biggest-selling record in music history”.
The track in question was ‘I Can See For Miles’, released in 1967. While The Who had enjoyed a string of hits before this moment, they were yet to score a number one single, unlike their peers such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. However, the band came agonisingly close to topping the chart with ‘My Generation’, which peaked at number two in 1965.
With ‘I Can See For Miles’, Townshend finally felt The Who had successfully cracked the code and were destined to elevate their superstardom to a new level. However, to his surprise, the track failed to top the charts. To this day, The Who have still never had a number one single despite crafting an array of classic songs.
Townshend later recalled to Rolling Stone: “Kit Lambert, who was our manager and my songwriting and composing mentor back then… His godfather was William Walton, the English classical composer. And when he heard ‘I Can See for Miles,’ he wrote Kit a letter thinking that Kit had written the song… he didn’t think any of us goons could have done anything like that, praising him for the adventurous harmonies.”
He continued: “Maybe I just got carried away with how clever I thought I was. I was disappointed. It wasn’t just disappointing that we didn’t get a hit. It was that I was worried that I couldn’t do any better. And that I had exhausted my sense of humour, my sense of irony with songs like ‘Pictures of Lily,’ ‘I’m a Boy,’ and ‘Happy Jack.’”
A young Pete Townshend of The Who. (Credits: Bent Rej)
After ‘I Can See For Miles’ only sneaked into the top ten in both the United States and the United Kingdom, Townshend accepted that chart dominance wouldn’t happen for the band. He said: “We were [once] knocked off the top by some comedian [Joe Dolce] whose song was called ‘Shaddap You Face’… There was another song that was number one coming up to Christmas in the UK that I think knocked the Beatles off the top of the charts. I can’t remember the exact context… it went, ‘Grandad, we love you…’ I remember thinking, ‘Jesus, this stuff just shouldn’t be in the charts!’”
It was a slap back down to earth for Townshend. He had to quickly realise that great art didn’t always make great money, and he needed to accept that. The Who needed to make the music they wanted and forget about how it was received, even if it was a dagger blow to the heart.
However, there was a silver lining to the disappointment, and Townshend used the experience to fuel The Who’s next project, the pioneering rock opera Tommy. “I don’t know, I suppose I was fooling myself. I [had] thought, ‘This is a masterpiece, and it will be treated as such. It will become the biggest-selling record in music history!’ I just wondered, ‘What do I do now?’ And that led to concepts and to Tommy,” Townshend revealed.
“The most raucous rock ‘n’ roll, the dirtiest thing they’d ever done,” was how The Who song was described in the press, and while it might not have sold a billion records, it did get one reaction from Paul McCartney, who allegedly wrote The Beatles’ anthemic ‘Helter Skelter’ in reaction to the track.
While ‘I Can See For Miles’ never became The Who’s signature song as Townshend had initially envisaged, more importantly, it did spawn Tommy. The latter became the defining project of the band’s career and mattered more to their legacy than scoring a number one.
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