He's trying to make light of his group's lucklessness but it clearly bothered Pete Townshend that a number one smash continued to allude The Who. In their native Britain they peaked at number two with both "My Generation" and "I'm a Boy" and had an additional eleven Top 10 entries but they could never quite reach the summit. Elsewhere, they couldn't even do that well with just one Top 10 appearance — with the sublime "I Can See for Miles" — on Billboard's Hot 100. "My Generation" was also a number two hit in Australia while "Squeeze Box" would reach the same spot in Ireland, where they seemed to have this curious habit of doing no better than number fourteen. As for Germany, they had a number of Top 20 entries in Europe's biggest market but their supposed chart topper only got to number four.
The country that Townshend seems unaware of — and honestly, who can blame him? — is Canada where The Who managed to buck convention. In addition to "I'm a Boy" hitting the top spot on RPM in May of 1967 (fun fact: it happened precisely ten years before I was born), they would have another the following decade. They weren't exactly racking up the number ones like, say, Herman's Hermits or The Monkees, but a pair of chart toppers in one territory when they couldn't buy one anywhere else is nothing to sneeze at.
Pete Townshend's above quote (incidentally, it always surprises me what a soft, playful speaking voice he has) is taken from The Who's acclaimed album Live at Leeds. The quartet had just finished an intense four-minute rendition of "Young Man Blues" (which somehow feels like it's a great deal longer though it never drags) and may have been keen to lighten the mood with a series of fan favourite hits. But this was still The Who in their element (for all that is made of studio LPs, particularly Tommy and Who's Next, as well as their impeccable run of singles, they were primarily a live band) and, as a result, the trio of "Substitute", "Happy Jack" and "I'm a Boy" never sounded better.
That is the one thing big thing that holds the single release of "Happy Jack" back: on Live at Leeds, its deficiencies are easy to brush off or be blissfully unaware of. I scarcely notice Towenshend's lazy rhyming ("Happy Jack wasn't tall but he was a man / He lived in the sand of the Isle of Man") or the effeminate backing vocals because I'm either too caught up in Keith Moon's tendsion-bulding drumming or they wisely toned down trying to sound like a bunch of old ladies. The "Happy Jack" that appears on Live at Leeds comes from three years of playing it in concert halls and arenas around the world and working out how to best present it to an audience. While lengthy workouts like the fifteen minute power-fest of "My Generation" and a killer closer in "Magic Bus" showcase a band stretching out to full effect, even their two-minute pop songs could be concert showstoppers.
Whereas the studio version here sounds very much like an early attempt before the kinks were fully worked out. (Wouldn't it be nice if this happened to be at the same time The Kinks were struggling to figure out Who they were meant to be? Sorry, I couldn't resist!) About the only thing that is more or less the same is Moon knocking it out of the park, somehow guiding the rhythm while also being its lone soloist. The remainder of the group — singer Roger Daltry, bassist John Entwhislte, Townshend himself — do just about enough to keep the song afloat but this is hardly a vintage performance from three fourths of a band that acquitted themselves better on both previous singles and many future recordings.
Of course, fans weren't to know that The Who had merely scratched the surface in terms of what Townshend's compositions were capable of. What they had in 1967 was surely charming enough and youngsters were probably relieved to hear a Who song that was dripping in cynicism and/or rage. Cute little character studies had been more the kind of thing that Ray Davies and Paul McCartney specialized in and I'm not convinced Townshend was fully comfortable with them at this stage. but it's a worthy if slightly underwritten attempt on his part. I suspect it's a lot better divorced from how The Who would perform it on one of the greatest live albums of all time but I wouldn't know how to go about separating the two. Good as their albums and singles are, there's simply nothing like The Who on stage.
Score: 6
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Can Con
I've really been neglecting this feature of late. To some extent, this is down to laziness on my part but I haven't been helped along by some of the scans I've been presented with on the RPM archives page run by the Government of Canada. (Some of them are just a little hard to read, is all) Feeling like it was time for a deep shallow dive, I found teenage singer Susan Taylor, who according to a very short bio over on Discogs, was a librarian at a Toronto radio station prior to her short-lived recording career. Her minor RPM hit "Don't Make Promises" opens promising an old fashioned string arrangement before melting into an agreeable country-folk-pop ditty. It's nothing spectacular but as it builds there's some nice Motown-influenced harmonies. I would say she's one for me to look out for but it seems she only ever released two singles before vanishing. Good to know she was able to make the most of her opportunity by hitting the national charts.
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