I Get Excitement

‘See Me, Feel Me’ is a song from the Who’s 1969 rock opera album Tommy.  It consists of two overture parts from Tommy, the second and third parts of the album’s final song ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ ‘See Me, Feel Me’ and ‘Listening To You’.  It was released as a single and it reached #12 in the US on the Pop Singles Chart. but it did not chart in the United Kingdom.  It remains their second highest-charting single in the US, after the top 10 ‘I Can See For Miles’.  The song is not identified as a separate track on the 1969 studio version of the album.  The Who performed ‘See Me, Feel Me’, followed by the refrain of ‘Listening To You’, at the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Tommy witnesses the murder of his mother’s lover by his father in a mirror and this creates a mental block inside of him, which causes him to become psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind.  They try a few different things in an attempt to cure Tommy, like the preacher who believes Marilyn Monroe can heal, and a woman called The Acid Queen to no avail and eventually Tommy is sent to live with relatives where he gets raped by his cousin, and Uncle Ernie.  Tommy having lost most of his senses, feels everything simply as rhythms and vibration, so he is super focused and he becomes the Pinball Wizard gaining many disciples which makes his family rich.  A doctor notices that Tommy is spending all of his time staring at a mirror and this pisses his mother off as Tommy is not paying any attention to her, so she shoves Tommy through the mirror, which becomes Tommy’s eventual awakening, as Tommy is reborn.  Tommy feels that he is free after this miraculous cure, but his followers see him as a kind of spiritual leader, because of his ability to live without seeing, hearing, or communicating for so long.  Tommy is trying to get as many followers as he can, instructing them to become deaf, dumb, and blind themselves in order to achieve enlightenment.  This song is sung by Tommy’s followers in praise of him being such a good leader for them.  They are seeking attention from their so-called messiah, so they beg him to see them feel them and touch them.

See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
See me, feel me, touch me, heal me

Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you I see the millions
On you I see the glory
From you I get opinions
From you I get the story

Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Right behind you I see the millions
On you I see the glory
From you I get opinions
From you I get the story

Listening to you I get the music
Gazing at you I get the heat
Following you I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the theme is Excitement, Pleasure, Sentiment, Spirit suggested by Melanie aka Sparky.