My Generation - 40th Anniversary Version - Live At Leeds

Roger Daltrey sang the lead vocals with a stutter, which was very unusual. After recording two takes of the song normally, The Who's manager, Kit Lambert, suggested to Daltrey that he stutter to sound like a British kid on speed. Daltrey recalled to Uncut magazine October 2001: "I have got a stutter. I control it much better now but not in those days. When we were in the studio doing 'My Generation', Kit Lambert came up to me and said 'STUTTER!' I said 'What?' He said 'Stutter the words – it makes it sound like you're pilled' And I said, 'Oh… like I am!' And that's how it happened. It was always in there, it was always suggested with the 'f-f-fade' but the rest of it was improvised."

Pete Townshend wrote this on a train ride from London to Southampton on May 19, 1965 - his 20th birthday. In a 1987 Rolling Stone magazine interview, Townshend explained: "'My Generation' was very much about trying to find a place in society. I was very, very lost. The band was young then. It was believed that its career would be incredibly brief."

Townshend wrote this for rebellious British youths known as "mods." It expressed their feeling that older people just don't get it.