Heal Me: Childhood Trauma in The Who’s Tommy with Dr. Anthony Tobia

Send us a text

When the British band, The Who, released their double album, Tommy, in 1969, many of the songs in it became instant classics and served as anthems for the Baby Boomer generation ever since. The album was characterized as a “rock opera,” because when connected, the songs told the story of the “deaf, dumb, and blind kid,” Tommy. The storyline made possible subsequent musicals, first as a movie in 1975, and then as a Broadway play in 1993 and as a revival in 2024. Underlying the storyline in each of these genres are the psychiatric consequences of childhood trauma Tommy experiences. In this episode, we consider the psychiatric conditions Tommy exhibits through selected songs from the original Broadway production, and how they are used in education and training.
Joining us for this purpose is Dr. Anthony Tobia, who is the regional chair in the Department of Psychiatry at the Rutgers School of Medicine and is also the Service Chief of Psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health in New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Tobia also holds a secondary appointment in the Division of General Internal Medicine there. His interests and scholarly work include the value and application of merging popular culture and psychiatry. The Who’s Tommy is among the many cultural works he has found helpful in depicting psychiatric problems for purposes of teaching health professions students and practitioners, and others in roles helping people with mental illness.
Links:
Original Broadway cast album of The Who’s Tommy, 1993
Background on The Who’s Tommy movie, 1975.
The video of Dr. Tobia’s psychiatry grand rounds on the Phantom of the Opera mentioned in the podcast.
Reddit 31 Knights of Halloween didactic at Rutgers during October.
Thanks to Benedict Teagarden, podcast music and culture director, for pointers on how the harmonization in See Me, Feel Me contributes to the meaning of the lyrics.
Please send us comments, recommendations, and questions to this text link, or email to: [email protected].

Thanks for listening, and please subscribe to The Clinic & The Person wherever you get your podcasts, or visit our website.