I Can See For Miles

The Who's most successful Stateside single, despite the common knowledge that both Townshend and Entwistle have insisted that they've never regarded The Who as a strong singles band.

Both have often stated that, in the case of a group like The Who, singles are a form of blackmail. For if an album artist wishes to garner airplay exposure, they are compelled to remove songs from out of an album's original context and offer them as both trailers and sales bait.

Around the time Pete Townshend was working on the "Tommy" project, various members of The Who have revealed that the only reason why they issued such singles as "Call Me Lightning", "Magic Bus" and this track because they were worried that if they didn't the quick-to-forget public might just do that!

Penned back in 1966, "I Can See For Miles" was the one song Townshend had kept in reserve: a proverbial ace-in-the-hole should his work on "Tommy" prevent him from taking time off to concoct the stop-gap Who release.