10 Perfect Rock Songs That Don't Have Any Lyrics

The whole idea of the rock opera wasn't something that Pete Townshend took lightly when coming up with Tommy. Music was always about more than just the three minute single, and telling a story over the course of an album felt like building on the counterculture elements that some of his contemporaries like the Beatles had touched on, only through a much grander lens. Every story needs a good intro to hook you in, and Overture might be the most condensed version of the rock opera that you could imagine.

Even though the core members of the Who all play on this song, the real star of this show is the orchestra, taking the building blocks of what Townshend has in his head and turning it into something a lot more bombastic, with the horns playing off of his acoustic guitar fills and the strings giving the whole song a brewing intensity, as if the whole thing could take off at any minute. Once you listen to the melodies though, every single section of the song sets up what's going to come later, from the running chord progression of See Me Feel Me to the horns playing the main theme for what would become centerpieces of the record like Go To the Mirror.

By the time the whole thing crashes at the end, the only words that we actually get in the song are more or less the prologue to the story, with Tommy's father dying in war and understanding that this boy will grow up without ever knowing who his true father is. As much as this was still rooted in rock and roll, this was still an opera, and this song is what you'd expect if rock entered the theater.