Claim: The Who included a drummer.

`` Happy Jack '' is a song by the British rock band The Who . It was released as a single in December 1966 in the UK , peaking at No. 3 in the charts . It peaked at No. 1 in Canada . It was also their first top 40 hit in the United States , where it was released in March 1967 and peaked at No. 24 . It was included on the American version of their second album , Happy Jack , originally titled A Quick One in the UK .   The song features Roger Daltrey on lead vocals with John Entwistle singing the first verse , making it one of the few songs composed by Pete Townshend to feature Entwistle on lead vocals . Author Mike Segretto describes Daltrey 's vocal as `` imitating Burl Ives . '' At the tail end of `` Happy Jack '' , Townshend can be heard shouting `` I saw you ! '' , and it is said that he was noticing drummer Keith Moon trying to join in surreptitiously to add his voice to the recording , something the rest of the band disliked . Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh calls this line `` the hippest thing '' about the song .   According to some sources , Townshend reported the song is about a man who slept on the beach near where Townshend vacationed as a child . Children on the beach would laugh at the man and once buried him in the sand . However , the man never seemed to mind and only smiled in response . According to Marsh , `` the lyric is basically a fairy tale , not surprisingly , given the links to Pete 's childhood .   Greg Littmann interprets the song as a possible reaction to alienation , as Jack allows `` the cruelty of other people slide off his back . ''   Despite its chart success , Who biographer Greg Atkins describes the song as being the band 's weakest single to that point . Daltrey reportedly thought the song sounded like a `` German oompah song . '' But Chris Charlesworth praised the `` high harmonies , quirky subject matter '' and `` fat bass and drums that suspend belief . Charlesworth particularly praised Moon 's drumming for carrying not just the beat , but also the melody itself , in what he calls `` startlingly original fashion . '' Marsh states that although the song contained little that the band had not done before , it did `` what the band did well , '' giving the `` soaring harmonies , enormously fat bass notes , thunderous drumming '' and the guitar riffs as examples .