On Oct 13th, 1965, The Who recorded “My Generation”, at Pye Studios, London. It reached No.2 on the UK chart. Roger Daltrey would later say that he stuttered the lyrics to fit them to the music. The BBC in the UK refused to play the song because it did not want to offend people who stutter. They released the song today, in 1965.

The song went through various stages as they tried to perfect it. Written by a 20-year-old Pete Townshend, it began as a slow song with a bluesy feel. At one point had handclaps and many key changes. The final product was at a much faster tempo than they conceived the song. The Who’s manager Kit Lambert came up with the idea to speed it up.

Townshend inspiration for the song came from the Queen Mother. She had allegedly caused Townshend’s 1935 Packard hearse towed. The Queen Mother had a daily drive through Belgravia, London and the site of the hearse offended her.

The stutter in the song was coincidental. Producer Shel Talmy insisted it was “one of those happy accidents”.

“My Generation” features one of the first bass solos in Rock history. John Entwistle used a new-on-the-market Danelectro bass to play it. On the Danelectro, he kept breaking strings trying to record it. The bassist ended up recording his parts on his trusted Fender Jazz bass.

Entwistle was the least visible member of the band. His bass solos on this song threw off directors when The Who would perform the song on TV shows. When it got to his part, the cameras would often go to guitarist Pete Townshend, and his fingers wouldn’t be moving.