Why did Roger Daltrey stutter the words on this classic Who hit?
So that he would sound like he was on amphetamines, as those were the drug of choice in London’s Mod scene (The Who’s target audience at the time), and they tend to make one stutter.
There are various explanations. Two different, although not mutually exclusive, stories from within The Who are that it was cold in the recording studio and Roger Daltrey was actually shivering, and that Pete Townshend had written the lyrics out by hand while riding in the back of a car and Daltrey had a difficult time making out the words.
Whatever the original reason for the stuttering was, the band apparently liked it – there was a deliberate decision to release the song with the stuttering. I’ve seen reporductions of some of the studio notes and they specifically say “Leave stuttering in”.
There are a couple of reasons why this might have been desireable aside from just making the song a little more unusual. Stuttering is a common side-effect of amphetamine use, and the pill-popping mods of the era interpreted the stuttering singing as being a sign that the singer was on speed, or at least a deliberate in-joke. Some people have also interpreted the stuttering as being meant to imply obscenities that wouldn’t have made it past the censors, and the song has often performed that way live (“f-f-f-fade away” becomes “f-f-f-fuckin’ fade away”, etc.). It’s possible that either of these might even be the real original reason for the stuttering, but if so no one in the band has ever admitted to it.