In November 1964, the Who entered the studio to record “I Can’t Explain,” the single that would help launch their career.
But guitarist Pete Townshend and the session’s other guitarist, Jimmy Page, had something else on their minds that day: a woman they had both been sleeping with.
In fact, when Page arrived at the studio, the two guitarists spent much of their time talking about her.
By that point the Who were building a loyal following in London’s clubs, but their first single, “Zoot Suit,” released under the name the High Numbers, had failed to chart. Their next record needed to work. Townshend wrote “I Can’t Explain” with a clear objective — to capture the explosive sound producer Shel Talmy had recently helped create with the Kinks.
We’d had a mutual girlfriend. She’d been going out with Jimmy before and was still, you know… kinda hooked on him for a little longer than I was comfortable with.”
— Pete Townshend
Talmy had produced the Kinks’ breakthrough hits “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night,” which served as Townshend’s template. The Kinks records had reset the expectations for British guitar-driven pop, and Townshend was deliberately aiming at that compressed, aggressive sound.
Talmy liked “I Can’t Explain,” but he wasn’t entirely confident the young band could deliver a tight studio performance. Keith Moon’s timekeeping could be unpredictable, and Townshend himself felt he wasn’t yet much of a lead guitarist.
So Talmy reinforced the session. The English vocal trio the Ivy League was brought in to supply backing vocals, and two session players were hired as insurance. The identity of the substitute drummer remains unknown, but the guitarist was Page, a favorite of Talmy’s and one of London’s busiest studio musicians.
Page’s presence later fueled speculation that he played the distinctive guitar solo on “I Can’t Explain.” Townshend has always rejected that idea. “The solo’s me,” he told Guitar World in 1995. “Jimmy doesn’t play like that.”
We just started to talk about what we always talked about. ‘How's Anya?' ‘How is she? What’s she going through? Has she called you? Has she called me?’”
— Pete Townshend
Townshend already knew Page from the London music scene — and from a more personal connection.
“Jimmy was a friend of mine,” he continued. “We’d had a mutual girlfriend. She’d been going out with Jimmy before and was still, you know… kinda hooked on him for a little longer than I was comfortable with.”
The situation, he admitted, left both young guitarists unusually entangled.
“Anyway, she was much older than us. We were 19 or 20 and she was about 30. And a fucking sexy woman! She’d obviously fucked him to death and then proceeded to fuck me to death. And we had her in common. We were both kind of cross-eyed with this woman.”
So when Page showed up at the studio that day, the conversation quickly drifted from guitars to their shared romantic history.
I said to him, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’m here to give some weight to the guitar. I’m going to double the rhythm guitar on the overdubs.’”
— Pete Townshend
“We just started to talk about what we always talked about,” Townshend said. “‘How's Anya?' ‘How is she? What’s she going through? Has she called you? Has she called me?’”
Only after a while did Townshend ask the obvious question.
“And then I said to him, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said, ‘I’m here to give some weight to the guitar. I’m going to double the rhythm guitar on the overdubs.’”
Townshend had no objection. The two discussed their electric guitars and settled on their parts easily.
“He said, ‘What are you going to play?’ ‘A Rick 12,’ I told him. And he said, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll play a…’ whatever it was. It was all very congenial.”
Keith Moon, however, was less accommodating. Furious that another drummer had been brought in, he confronted the session player directly.
Keith was over in the corner telling the drummer, ‘Get out of the fucking studio or I’ll kill ya. Only Keith Moon plays the drums on a Who record!’”
— Pete Townshend
“Keith was over in the corner,” Townshend recalled, “telling the drummer, ‘Get out of the fucking studio or I’ll kill ya. Only Keith Moon plays the drums on a Who record!’”
Somehow, amid the tension — and while Townshend and Jimmy Page compared notes about the same woman they’d both been seeing — the band captured “I Can’t Explain,” the single that would launch the Who’s rise.
More importantly, “I Can’t Explain” confirmed for Townshend the group had a future.
“We had a hit record, ‘I Can't Explain,’” Townshend told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in November 2025. “I was driving my mom's little yellow van back to Ealing, where we lived in West London. I heard it on the radio, and that was it. I thought, Wow, I'm communicating. I have an audience.”
