The Who's 1969 rock opera *Tommy* included a song built around the refrain "see me, feel me, touch me, heal me", which the band eventually stopped performing live because they could no longer get through it without breaking into laughter. What began as one of Pete Townshend's most emotionally significant compositions for the album ended up undermined on stage by the unintentional comic effect of its repeated, suggestive lyric, making serious live performance impossible. The anecdote is a small but telling illustration of how a song's meaning can shift for its creators once it leaves the studio and meets a live audience.

Pete Townshend, who wrote the track, has said of it: "We can't play it on stage for laughing now, but when I first wrote it, it brought tears to my eyes." His comment highlights the contrast between the song's original, deeply felt purpose within the *Tommy* narrative and the band's later inability to perform it straight-faced, ultimately leading to it being dropped from their live sets.