This is the first song by The Who that I ever heard. Back
in the mid-60s, WFEC (1400 on the AM dial) was the big Top 40 station in
Harrisburg PA, where I grew up, so that’s what all of us kids listened to most
of the time. At some point in the fall of 1965, I discovered that another local
AM station (WKBO 1230) had a one-hour show every Sunday night that featured the
music that was current in England at the time. I listened to that religiously
every week and picked up on a lot of great tracks that were big across the
Atlantic but never made it over here, including “Substitute.”
Somewhat unbelievably, The Who only had one Top 10 hit in the U.S. (This one wasn’t it.)