The Who: “See Me, Feel Me” (1970)
The last single from Tommy, although I have the strange feeling we’ll meet again.
Kronomyth 5.2: Tommy’s curtain call.
In the Fall of 1970, Decca/Track decided to release one last single from Tommy featuring excerpted versions of the work’s opening and closing musical statements. “See Me, Feel Me” removes the “We’re Not Gonna Take It” section (its original title) and now features only the “See Me, Feel Me” and “Listening To You” sections. The flip side is the Overture faded before “It’s A Boy” arrives. Later releases of Tommy adopted the approach, with “It’s A Boy” and “See Me, Feel Me” presented as separate songs. Fascinating stuff, I know, and the sad thing is it took 90 minutes to track down and confirm the different releases. It’s a queer geas I’m under. Note that this single is different than the soundtrack version of “Listening To You/See Me, Feel Me,” which was released as a single in 1975.
Original 7-inch single version
A1. See Me, Feel Me (from the “Tommy” finale We’re Not Gonna Take It) (Peter Townshend) (3:22)
B1. Overture From Tommy (instrumental) (Peter Townshend) (4:00)
Original 7-inch single version (Japan)
A1. See Me, Feel Me (3:20)
B1. Young Man Blues (4:52)
The Plastic
Released on 7-inch single on September 7, 1970 in the US (Decca, 732729) and on October 9, 1970 in the UK (Track, 2094 004) and Australia and Germany (Polydor, 2121 010), and in 1970 in Argentina (Polydor, 2176008), El Salvador (Decca, 732729), Japan (Polydor,DP 1758) and the Philippines (Polydor, PRO-3249) with picture sleeve; reached #12 on the US charts (charted on September 26, 1970 for 13 weeks).
- Re-issued on 7-inch single in 1973 in the US (MCA/Track, MCA-60106) {brown label} and Canada (MCA, MCA 60106) {black rainbow label}.
- Re-issued on 7-inch single in 1980 in the US (MCA, MCA-60106) {sky label}.
Well, that’s a rather pretentious picture sleeve for a rock 45, isn’t it? Beats out any prog single in that department, I’m sure. It almost made the Top 10. I heard it all of the time on at the age of 13 on my little AM transistor radio. At the time, it seemed like a spiritual experience. It still does. At the end, having lost all, Tommy finds God. At least that’s my take on it.
Decca missed out on releasing the B-side as an A-side. A group called the Assembled Multitude beat them to it a month before this came out. It charted almost as high as the single. I heard that quite a bit, too. Too bad that we didn’t own a working record player…