The Who love their Jaguar

June 7, 2011 12:00 AM

The Who are one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and they seemingly have a song about every possible subject. While cars weren't a main focal point for the band, they do have one song about cars - although it's a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Besides smashing their instruments onstage, The Who are probably best known for their concept albums, like "Tommy." In 1967, they tried an oddball concept with "The Who Sell Out," which was intended to be a response to the fact that the band were doing a lot of commercials at the time. The idea behind the album was that most of the songs would sound like radio jingles or advertisements. Listened in its entirety, the album sounded like a "pirate radio" broadcast from the late sixties.

It was here that The Who composed "Jaguar," an ode to the luxury British vehicle. The main verse goes "Every lovely spot near or far/You can reach them too in your car/Or you might be there now if you own a jag already" and sounds similar to a radio commercial from the time period. That's pretty much confirmed by the end, when the whole band sings about "John Mason's Cars," a fictional dealership.

Perhaps ironically, the most famous song to come off the album was undoubtedly "I Can See For Miles." While the song itself doesn't really have anything to do with advertising, it was repurposed for use in a car headlights commercial some forty years after the album's initial release. 

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