The Who guitarist Pete Townshend wrote this song when he was 18 years old. He described it as being about a guy who "can't tell his girlfriend he loves her because he's taken too many Dexedrine tablets." Dexedrine is an amphetamine, which explains why the guy is "dizzy in the head" and "hot and cold." It's not just love that he's feeling.
This was the first single from The Who, which had recently changed their name from The High Numbers. It was one of the first original songs The Who performed; they played mostly covers of American R&B songs to that point.
This song is about what it is like to be young and unable to express your feelings. The guy in the song can't find a way to tell his girlfriend he loves her. Roger Daltrey told Uncut magazine: "Well, it's that thing - 'I got a feeling inside, I can't explain' - it's rock'n'roll. The more we try to explain it, the more we crawl up our own arses and disappear! I was very proud of that record. That was us, y'know - it was an original song by Pete and it captured that energy and that testosterone that we had in those days."
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