The Acid Queen

For the album by Tina Turner, see Acid Queen.

"The Acid Queen"
Song

"The Acid Queen" is a song written by Pete Townshend and is the ninth song on The Who's rock opera Tommy. The song tells the attempts of Tommy's parents to try and cure him. They leave him with a gypsy, a self-proclaimed "Acid Queen". She feeds Tommy various hallucinogenic drugs.

It is often grouped with the album's next track, "Underture", a lengthy instrumental which deals with Tommy's hallucinations and his experience with acid.

Several notable singers have performed the song including Merry Clayton, Patti LaBelle, Bette Midler and Tina Turner.

The Acid Queen's origin

Pete Townshend used Tommy's blindness to represent our "...blindness to reality." The Acid Queen symbolized mindless self-indulgence, and then heroically attempted to use drugs to cure Tommy's ailments: deafness, muteness and blindness.

Tina Turner version

"The Acid Queen"
Song

"Acid Queen" is the third single released from the Tina Turner album Acid Queen, following "Baby Get It On" and "Whole Lotta Love". It was released in early 1976. A different recording of the song is also included on the soundtrack album to the 1975 film Tommy in which Turner stars as the Acid Queen.

The song was the last Tina Turner song to be produced by Ike Turner before her split from him and the Ike & Tina Turner Revue in 1976.

The original soundtrack version of the song has been featured in the Tina Turner compilation albums The Collected Recordings - Sixties to Nineties (1994), Tina! (2008) and The Platinum Collection (2009). It has also been included in some Ike & Tina Turner compilations including Proud Mary: The Best of Ike & Tina Turner (1991), even though it is officially a solo Tina Turner song.

The song was also featured on Turner's 50th Anniversary Tour in 2008 with added elements of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and was included on the DVD of the live album Tina Live.

Track listing

1. "Acid Queen" – 3:01
2. "Let's Spend the Night Together" – 2:58

Official versions

• Original soundtrack version – 3:50
• Album version – 3:01