The album also included a cover of the Holland–Dozier–Holland song "Heat Wave" and ends with a musical suite titled "A Quick One, While He's Away", which served as an inspiration for later rock operas that the Who would become known for.

"Heat Wave", the only cover track and the only nod to the group's soul influences on the album, was originally written by Tamla's Holland–Dozier–Holland team and performed by Martha and the Vandellas.

In order to achieve a deadened tom-tom sound like that of Crickets drummer Jerry Allison's distinctive paradiddles on "Peggy Sue", towels were placed on Moon's drum kit.

"A Quick One, While He's Away" is a nine-minute suite of song snippets telling a story of infidelity and reconciliation, the first foray into an extended form that led to the rock operas Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973).

The cover was designed by the pop art exponent Alan Aldridge,[7] with the front cover depicting the band playing their instruments, as the titles of some songs from the album come out of the instruments in the form of onomatopoeiae: "Cobwebs and Strange" for Moon (top left), "Whiskey Man" for Entwistle (bottom left), "See My Way" for Daltrey (top right), and "A Quick One, While He's Away" for Townshend (bottom right).

The back cover of the UK release is black, with the title and track listing across the top, and a colour head-shot photograph of each band member with the letters of "The W H O" superimposed individually over their faces.

[8] The back cover of the US release is a black-and-white photo montage of the band members accompanied by a short personality sketch of each (notorious among Who fans for Keith Moon's humorous assertion that he was keen on "breeding chickens").

A track listing, a couple of paragraphs touting the band, an advertisement for their debut studio album, and a technical blurb are also crowded onto the back cover of the US release.