Re: RnR HOF 500 songs that shaped rock

[amck@eden.com (Alan McKendree)]

At 10:49 9/5/95, Marc V Conte wrote:
>Go to the MIrror Boy is a way of including all of Tommy.

I think this is a surprisingly well-thought-out choice.  I think this song
is the climax of the work; it introduces the "Listening to You" theme for
the first time (outside the Overture), which is set up by the parent's
"What is happening in his head?" and that final suspenseful chord before
the theme.  The introduction of GttM alone evokes the power and authority
of the doctor's knowledge and wisdom; after an album side's worth of being
dragged around to this or that huckster, finally Tommy is being taken to
someone who knows what they are about and won't promise false remedies or
hopes but does set him on the right track.  And then after the setup, the
song launches into the ecstatic major-(power)-chorded anthem expressing
Tommy's joy at seeing his own image in the mirror (not realizing that it is
himself); this is the turning point, where he encounters the inspiration
that will carry him through the rest of his illness and beyond.

Well done HoF.

Alan