In a 2015 interview with "Rolling Stone", Townshend referred to "I Can't Explain" as "a song, written by some 18-year-old kid, about the fact that he can't tell his girlfriend he loves her because he's taken too many Dexedrine tablets." In his autobiography "Who I Am", Townshend says he came up with the song after being told by managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp to write original tunes for his up-and-coming band. He locked himself up in his bedroom listening to Bob Dylan, Charles Mingus, John Lee Hooker and Booker T. & the M.G.'s, and tried to summarise the feelings caused by the music, with the idea that came up the most being "I can't explain". Thus came the first verse, a meta approach where the lyrics are about songwriting itself. After being introduced to producer Shel Talmy, Townshend listened to "You Really Got Me" trying to make the rest of "I Can't Explain" a love song similar to the Kinks, hoping to please Talmy.