1970 Classic Rock Hit Ranked Among Iconic Band's All-Time ‘Greatest Songs' Became a Career-Defining Anthem
In 1970, The Who had a massive hit with a song that wasn't originally meant to be a single. The song, "See Me Feel Me/Listening to You," was from the rock opera Tommy and appeared as part of "We're Not Gonna Take It," the final track on The Who's 1969 album of the same name.
The song peaked at No 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Nov. 28, 1970, amid a 13-week run on the music chart. More than 50 years later, "See Me, Feel Me/ Listening to You" remains the British rock band's second highest-ranking song of all time and their signature closing anthem.
Rolling Stone ranked the 1970 hit as one of The Who's greatest songs, noting that "See Me, Feel Me" was "released alone as a single after the Who's triumph at Woodstock."
"With its heraldic, redemptive ‘Listening to You' coda, featuring Daltrey at his blond rock-god apex, ‘We're Not Gonna Take It/See Me, Feel Me' remains the high point of Who sets to this day," the outlet added of the grand finale piece.
Woodstock changed the game for the song
On the Tommy album, "See Me Feel Me/Listening to You" are the second and third parts of the album's final track, "We're Not Gonna Take It," and are not listed as a separate single.
But during their set at the Woodstock Art and Music Festival in August 1969, The Who's performance of "See Me, Feel Me," headed by lead singer Roger Daltrey, was so powerful that record producers decided to release the "We're Not Gonna Take It" outro as a single.
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Decades later, fans continue to go back to the song, describing it on YouTube as one of the most powerful musical pieces in rock history.
"The outro of this piece is some of the most moving music I've ever heard," one fan wrote of the full Tommy track.
"This song is a prayer! 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," another wrote.
"I appreciate this band more every time I listen to them 50 years on," another fan added, while another agreed that the song just gets "better each time you listen."
Roger Daltrey said he found his identity as a singer with ‘Tommy'
In the rock opera Tommy, Daltrey played the "deaf, dumb, and blind" main character. In an interview with Goldmine, he marked the accompanying album as a defining moment in his career.
"The years previous, the original material I was singing was a person who had a lost identity searching for home," he said. "Tommy brought me home. I'd been the deaf, dumb, and blind kid, and that music took me home. All of a sudden, I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew exactly who I was. I didn't fear anything."
The rock legend also talked about the enduring popularity of "See Me, Feel Me" decades later.
"I don't care who you are, you can be the hardest bastard on the planet, but one day in your life you will sit there saying, ‘see me, feel me, touch me, heal me' feeling sorry for yourself," Daltrey told Vice in an interview. "There's a vulnerability that that music and those words create."
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