History Music / Tommy

* VocalTagTeam: The album features the different members of the band "playing" different characters in the story. While this is not ''strictly'' adhered to, the rough breakdown would be that Daltrey plays Tommy, the Local Lad and the Doctor; Townshend plays the parents, the narrator and other minor roles; and Entwistle plays Cousin Kevin and Uncle Ernie.

* GoldDigger: A common interpretation for The Lover. Expect the stage version to show him happily opening what he thinks is Nora's widow pension only to find that it's a letter informing her that Captain Walker is alive and on his way home, which he then burns. [[WhatAnIdiot Not sure what his plan was there.]]

* TooDumbToLive:
** Tommy's parents, who can't find a doctor for him until the end of the second act. And said doctor ''lives in the same town they do''. They take him to the Acid Queen before that! [[{{Fanon}} Some might interpret it]] as a criticism of the anti-psychiatry movement of TheSixties.
** At least the stage show fixes this, since his parents are shown constantly taking Tommy to see a doctor as he grows up, and they have no reason to believe that their son who suddenly lost half his senses didn't have anything ''physically'' wrong with him. Taking him to see the Acid Queen is played more as an act of desperation on Tommy's father's part, and he gets Tommy out of there before the Acid Queen can do anything.

Being something that delivers plot through music, you have to make some allowances and read into it in some places. That said, it has much more continuity than many examples of RockOpera and has a very definite plot arc embedded in the catchy tunes. The story is heavily inspired by Pete Townshend's then-recent conversion to [[NotChristianRock the teachings of Meher Baba]] and his subsequent rejection of psychedelic drugs, a theme he would continue to explore in later albums.

* NotChristianRock: The album is heavily permeated by the tenets of Townshend's new-found faith in the teachings of Meher Baba, and Townshend describes the "Listening To You" finale as being prayer in musical form.

* VariantCover: The 1996 remaster has the artwork as the band originally intended, without their faces on the cover.

See also ''Music/{{Quadrophenia}}'', Music/TheWho's second RockOpera, and ''Music/TheWall'' and ''Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars'', those ''other'' incredibly influential RockOperas.

* ShoutOut: In the film version of "Eyesight to the Blind", a religious cult led by PreacherMan Music/EricClapton brings out a statue of Creator/MarilynMonroe in her pose from ''Film/TheSevenYearItch'' hoping that her touch can cure Tommy. This whole scene is pure, unadulterated FauxSymbolism.

* A 1975 [[TheMovie film]] directed by Creator/KenRussell, which manages to be even more trippy and incoherent than the original album. Like the [=LSO=] recording, a number of guest musicians were featured, including Music/EltonJohn (whose recording of "Pinball Wizard" became a radio hit), Ann-Margret as Tommy's mother Nora, Music/EricClapton and Arthur Brown as the [[PreacherMan high priests of the church of Marilyn Monroe]], Creator/OliverReed as Tommy's "Uncle Frank" Hobbs (who in this version kills Tommy's father rather than the other way around), and Creator/JackNicholson, in his only singing role (barring his performance of "La Vie en Rose" in ''Film/AsGoodAsItGets''), as Tommy's doctor. LighterAndSofter than the album, with gratuitous quantities of synthesized instrumentals and lots of LargeHam moments. The soundtrack album was also released by Creator/PolydorRecords as a double album and went gold in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, proving popular enough to get reissued on CD several times.

!! This work and its various adaptations provide examples of:

The album was listed at #96 in ''Magazine/RollingStone''[='=]s [[Music/RollingStone500GreatestAlbumsOfAllTime 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]], and at #123 in ''Website/AcclaimedMusic''[='=]s [[UsefulNotes/AcclaimedMusicAllTimeTopAlbums 2018 edition of their All Time Top 3,000 Albums list]].

* ShoutOut:
** In the film version of "Eyesight to the Blind", a religious cult led by PreacherMan Music/EricClapton brings out a statue of Creator/MarilynMonroe in her pose from ''Film/TheSevenYearItch'' hoping that her touch can cure Tommy. This whole scene is pure, unadulterated FauxSymbolism.
** In the 1993 musical, Captain Walker is the PapaWolf killing [[AssholeVictim his wife's lover]] in self-defense, which is an ironic shout-out to the 1975 film in which the lover does the same to Tommy's dad in self-defense.

* {{Gaslighting}}: In "1921", Tommy's parents' attempt to convince him that he didn't witness a murder sets off his disability:

* ArcWords: "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me..."

* LastNoteNightmare: "Tommy's Holiday Camp" is a fun, commercial-like jingle welcoming visitors to the cult of the Pinball Wizard himself, sung cheerfully by his sexual predator uncle, Ernie. At the end of the song, Ernie decides he'll exclaim "Welcome!", but does so in a scratchy and ominous voice.

** In 1994, Creator/DataEast released ''[[Pinball/TheWhosTommy The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard]]'' (usually shortened to just ''Tommy''). As a fully-licensed pinball machine, it includes 21 songs from the soundtrack sung by the cast of the Broadway show.

* CoveredInGunge: This happens to Tommy's mother in the movie. After she smashes the screen of a TV set, it belches out waves of soap suds, then baked beans, and finally chocolate syrup, all of which Ann-Margret gamely writhes around in.

* CoveredInGunge: This happens to Tommy's mother in the movie; a washing machine discharges industrial quantities of foam over her, followed by baked beans, and finally chocolate, all of which Ann-Margret gamely writhes around in.

* RealityEnsues: "Sally Simpson" sees the titular girl having fantasies of Tommy ending up with her if she can just get onstage with him. She goes to one of his sermons, jumps up onstage, and brushes him on the face... at which point security promptly throw her off the stage, giving her a cut that requires sixteen stitches to close.

* FaceOnTheCover: The original release of the album features this due at the insistence of Track Record. The 1996 remastered CD release edits these portraits out to better reflect the original intentions for the album art.

Born at the end of WWI (WWII in the movie and Broadway versions) to a war widow, Tommy Walker is an ordinary child growing up in postwar Britain until his father, [[BackFromTheDead presumed dead but actually missing behind enemy lines for several years]], comes home, finds his wife with her new lover, and kills him in self-defense (in the Broadway version, anyway; the movie version has the new lover kill the husband in self-defense, and the album itself leaves the nature of the event [[NoodleIncident deliberately ambiguous]]) while Tommy witnesses it all in a mirror. Traumatized by the experience, and his parents' exhortation that "You didn't hear it, you didn't see it, [[ConfusingMultipleNegatives you won't say nothing to no one ever in your life]]", Tommy is struck deaf, dumb (i.e. mute), and blind.

[-Note: early CD releases are across two discs, one for each part (corresponding with the LP release); CD releases since 1990 are on a single disc.-]

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: The original vinyl album's auto sequencing annoyed people who didn't own auto-changer turntables, as they flipped over the first LP expecting to play side 2 and got side 3 instead. As record changers have long since fallen out of use, modern vinyl reissues use standard sequencing.

* A 1975 [[TheMovie film]] directed by Creator/KenRussell, which manages to be even more trippy and incoherent than the original album. Like the [=LSO=] recording, a number of guest musicians were featured, including Music/EltonJohn (whose recording of "Pinball Wizard" became a radio hit), Ann-Margret as Tommy's mother Nora, Music/EricClapton and Arthur Brown as the [[PreacherMan high priests of the church of Marilyn Monroe]], Creator/OliverReed as Tommy's "Uncle Frank" Hobbs (who in this version kills Tommy's father rather than the other way around), and Creator/JackNicholson, in his only singing role (barring his performance of "La Vie en Rose" in ''Film/AsGoodAsItGets''), as Tommy's doctor. LighterAndSofter than the album, with gratuitous quantities of synthesized instrumentals and lots of LargeHam moments. The soundtrack album was also released as a double album and went gold in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, proving popular enough to get reissued on CD several times.

* A 1975 [[TheMovie film]] directed by Creator/KenRussell, which manages to be even more trippy and incoherent than the original album. Like the [=LSO=] recording, a number of guest musicians were featured, including Music/EltonJohn (whose recording of "Pinball Wizard" became a radio hit), Ann-Margret as Tommy's mother Nora, Music/EricClapton and Arthur Brown as the [[PreacherMan high priests of the church of Marilyn Monroe]], Creator/OliverReed as Tommy's "Uncle Frank" Hobbs (who in this version kills Tommy's father rather than the other way around), and Creator/JackNicholson, in his only singing role (barring his performance of "La Vie en Rose" in ''Film/AsGoodAsItGets''), as Tommy's doctor. LighterAndSofter than the album, with gratuitous quantities of synthesized instrumentals and lots of LargeHam moments.

* DamnYouMuscleMemory: The original vinyl album's auto sequencing annoyed people who didn't own auto-changer turntables, as they flipped over the first LP expecting to play side 2 and got side 3 instead.