"Touch" is the first song of the third side of Random Access Memories. The lyrics were written by singer-songwriter Paul Williams, who also performs lead vocals. With a running time of more than eight minutes, it is the most complex track on the album, and is considered by Daft Punk member Guy-Man to be the "core of the album," around which the "memories" of the other songs revolve. The song and Williams' involvement is discussed in the eighth "Collaborators" video documenting the making of RAM.
The song's intro is a direct reference to the 1974 film Phantom of the Paradise, for which Williams composed the soundtrack. Williams' voice, at first heavily distorted, is gradually "processed" into Williams' normal voice using recording studio manipulation, similar to a scene in the film. Daft Punk's decision to only make public appearances wearing their iconic masks is implied to also have been influenced by the film, whose titular character wears a mask to disguise his identity.
Long-time Williams cohort Chris Caswell shares composing credits for "Touch", and is credited with keyboard work on a majority of the album's songs. RAM was partly recorded in Henson Studios, Santa Monica; the building used to house the recording studios of A&M Records, Williams' record label during the 1970s. In another Williams connection, he is famous for having composed songs for The Muppets productions, the Muppets being the brainchild of Jim Henson.
Touch
Daft Punk Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I remember touch
Touch, touch
I remember touch
Where do I belong?
Touch, I need something more
I remember touch
I need something more in my mind
Touch, I remember touch
Pictures came with touch
A painter in my mind
Tell me what you see
A tourist in a dream
A visitor, it seems
A half-forgotten song
Where do I belong?
Tell me what you see
I need something more
Kiss, suddenly alive
Happiness arrive
Hunger like a storm
How do I begin?
A room within a room
A door behind a door
Touch, where do you lead?
I need something more
Tell me what you see
I need something more
Home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer, you're
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer
You're home, hold on
If love is the answer, you're
Touch, sweet touch
You've given me too much to feel
Sweet touch
You've almost convinced me I'm real
I need something more
I need something more
In “Touch,” Daft Punk explore the themes of memory, desire, and transformation through the lens of touch. The lyrics describe a yearning for a more complete understanding of the world and one's place in it. The first verse poses the question “Where do I belong?” and expresses a need for something beyond the mundane experiences of everyday life. The second verse delves into the dreamlike quality of memory and perception, with the lyric “A tourist in a dream/A visitor, it seems,” suggesting a sense of disorientation and being disconnected from reality.
Throughout the song, there is a focus on touch as a way of connecting and engaging with the world. The line “Pictures came with touch” suggests that memories are not simply visual, but are tied to physical sensations and experiences. The chorus, with its repetition of “I need something more,” emphasizes the desire for deeper meaning and connection.
The bridge of the song brings a shift in tone, as the lines “Kiss, suddenly alive/Happiness arrive” suggest a feeling of euphoria and a breakthrough in understanding. The final chorus brings the themes of the song together, with the lines “If love is the answer/You’re home, hold on” suggesting that true connection and understanding comes through love.
Line by Line Meaning
Touch, touch
Expressing the deep longing for human connection
I remember touch
Reflecting on memories of past connections
Touch, touch
Reiterating the desire for physical touch
I remember touch
Reinforcing the importance of human connection
Where do I belong?
Questioning one's place in the world without meaningful connections
Touch, I need something more
Realizing that physical touch alone is not enough to fulfill the need for connection
I remember touch
Reminiscing about past experiences of connection
I need something more in my mind
Acknowledging the need for meaningful mental connections
Pictures came with touch
Associating physical touch with memories and visual images
A painter in my mind
Imagining the brain as a canvas for memories and imagination
Tell me what you see
Requesting others to share their experiences and perspectives
A tourist in a dream
Feeling disconnected and lost in abstract thoughts and imagination
A visitor, it seems
Feeling like an outsider in one's own thoughts and experiences
A half-forgotten song
Recalling a distant memory that is not fully remembered
Where do I belong?
Asking the same existential question again
Tell me what you see
Requesting others to share their perspectives and help find one's place in the world
I need something more
Emphasizing the ongoing need for deeper connections
Kiss, suddenly alive
Describing the rush and excitement of physical intimacy
Happiness arrive
Associating physical connection with happiness and joy
Hunger like a storm
Describing the intense desire for deeper connections
How do I begin?
Feeling lost and unsure about how to satisfy the hunger for connection
A room within a room
Metaphor for the complexity of the human brain and its inner workings
A door behind a door
Suggesting that there are deeper layers of consciousness and memories to explore
Touch, where do you lead?
Questioning the ultimate destination and fulfillment of physical touch
I need something more
Stressing the ongoing need for deeper connections beyond physical touch
Tell me what you see
Repeating the same request for help and guidance in finding deeper connections
Home, hold on
Referring to the feeling of finding a true place of belonging and connection
If love is the answer
Suggesting that love and connection are the key to finding one's true home
You're home, hold on
Affirming the importance of holding on to the connections that make one feel at home
Touch, sweet touch
Acknowledging the power of physical touch to evoke emotion and connection
You've given me too much to feel
Expressing the intense depth of emotion and connection felt through physical touch
Sweet touch
Emphasizing the pleasure and comfort that come from meaningful physical touch
You've almost convinced me I'm real
Suggesting that physical touch is so powerful that it can make one feel more alive and connected to reality
I need something more
Repeating the ongoing need for deeper connections beyond physical touch
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Christopher Paul Caswell, Guy Manuel Homem Christo, Paul Hamilton Williams, Thomas Bangalter
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@lelejanka4841
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're home
Hold on, if love is the answer, you're...
merci beaucoup daft punk!
FOREVER
@talkssometimes
0:00 To me, the beginning is like a robot recounting his past. Broken, worn out, forgotten. Consumed by his memories of better times. Obsessed over them. His lost ability to do. To do anything. Finished alongside the world. Unable to do more. Truly at an everlasting end. We dive deeper and deeper into it's turmoil, until we awaken to his past: When the lyrics begin.
1:54 Here, I imagine a cut to the robot becoming conscious. The cadence of the music matching his thoughts at the time. Like a baby born into the world and crying for the first time. Not knowing what his feelings are: Why was he made? why can he think at all? He has a job to do, why not do it without complicating anything? He asks "what do you see in me? i don't make sense." (Tell me what you see, I need something more.)
2:36 The sudden shift in tone is when he sees something and forms an idea of it. How he FEELS about it. It was his thought. What he felt didn't mean anything. Not to anyone but him. His circuits light up. His memory banks open. This dream he was merely forced to witness was HIS now. He looks around more wondering in wonder at how much there really was. Sure, he already knows what it all looks like. what it does. But the captivating thing to him was how HE was seeing it now. The "why?" of it all had overtaken him. He had questions. He wanted them answered. He had PURPOSE. The off-standing researchers watch him eagerly out of sight.
He gets up from his original room, walks to the door to find a hallway behind it. He really understands he is in a facility now, part of something bigger. He is going to find out what it is. what his place in it is.
3:01 Eventually he stumbles toward a room, one the researchers had set up for him to observe and learn. It was full of toys, interactive computer equipment, books and e books.
3:15 But eye-catching to him is a corner full of instruments: a large grand piano in the middle as a center piece. Hesitantly, and eagerly, he approaches it. sitting on the bench, he hits a few notes. unknown to him, he was created with perfect tone. He hits keys. He begins to favor other ones. He finds out which ones sound even better together. Which should come after the other. He lights up, he has purpose. He has freedom. He has something to express it through. At this point, we spin around the scene and cut into the future. He is out in the world, playing in a jazz band. Behind him an energetic crowd and around him talented and understanding band mates. Through here on out, we see various cuts of his life as a professional musician, travelling, playing, something new and exciting always waiting for him somewhere, like it always has been. His craft is approaching perfection. His friends are content. His creators are immensely pleased.
4:17 And strangely it begins to feel different. The same as always, but now somehow different. He hadn't aged. He couldn't. Although he had been sure he could do this forever, it was different now that he actually end up doing it. Off put by this, he watches the world around him happen so quickly. His mind runs millions of times faster then any one person's. He sees the gap between him and others. He is quietly curious of the emotion of "love." He, being programmed to think individually, didn't seem to have his own definition of love. He reflects. His life's spark. To learn. To improve. To belong. It was his love. He would hold onto it. He lived in it, it was his home. His answer. He methodically begins to reassure himself of this, and years fly past him. Band to band, into and out of irrelevancy... decade after decade, century to century, the performing robot. He kept it up all the same, until one day, while simply playing his instrument...
5:36 He does it. He finishes. He wasn't aware he was close, but the moment it had happened he froze, horrified. He had played it all. All of the piano's tunes.
To perfection.
He could no longer learn. He had been taught, had taught, experimented, made mistakes, created genres, made masterpieces in existing ones, and the whole world had seen and appreciated the work and switched to doubt it later. His instrument couldn't bring him more. He finished the tune. Nothing to play. Although he considered running another number, what would that do for him? He needed the new, the exciting, and it had run out, just like that. It would be feeble to try and find more from it. and then a bigger realization: he could try something else, but eventually he would define that thing to himself as well. For the first time ever, he can see an end: what he could find would run out some day. He was not immortal. His love wasn't meant to last.
6:03 His memories begin to be recounted. His first moments in the sun. Fireworks. Award shows. Being booed off the stage. Block parties. Each a new, painful emotion.
But even in this melancholy, he knew he had one option: to begin on his inevitable path. He would perfect it all one day. As he walks away from the now obsolete piano, we begin to see him grow and become more and more, but remember his glaring end along side him. He learns each part of every band, and even plays entire bands himself. He takes it all to the very limit and moves along, hoping to delay the end he will one day reach. He mastered music eventually, his younger counterpart's dream. Then he went to the rest of entertainment and arts. Then education. Then politics. Then so forth. He masters the most basic tasks to the most elite and ambitious jobs in the world. Creating new. Experiencing it. Bloating it in an attempt to satisfy his impossible need. This too became boring. He began menial tasks he would randomly think up. Anything was fair game. Centuries move by. Millenia. He still holds his love dearly. He could still find home.
7:46: But alas, our fated end. His love itself had been mastered. The humans around him could no longer interest him. Many had moved on, like they had before. To the next piece of the universe they could go to survive. He had been along with them many times, each ending the same way. The world was no longer a problem to be solved. He had never brought peace, since such a thing could not be done. He knew that better then anyone. Anything. So here he sits, on this finalized rock. Time was already beginning to repeat itself. He was given the human spirit, along with it a body that would not decay. He was the living embodiment of immortality. But now, he was dead. Fully conscious and aware within his body, but dead. He had killed the human spirit. Realized it's age. He had done it all and then again. Now, on this now dying, spent planet he sat, unmoving. He briefly observed his surroundings again, hoping for a memory error to give him a chance renew something in there, but that had been something he solved and unsolved. It was time. Time to be done. To be complete. He briefly recalls his younger times, which he considered reliving. But it would all bring him back here again, leaving it with no point as well. And with this logical conclusion, he stood, unable to quit. On standby until existence was over. It wasn't enough for him anyway. He needed something more....
@reborn9025
@@tomvideo6051 It isn't about sex. Maybe you should be the one to come back in 3-4 years. The beginning is in reference to Phantom of the Paradised, which was a huge influence on daft punk. The song is about a robot that was human or longs to be human, "I remember touch," and the album title ,"Random Access Memories," are other obvious indicators. So he longs for the touch that he remembers in his memories. If all you took away from this was sex, then clearly you don't understand. Just read the other comments which are all in agreement with what I said.
If that isn't enough here; crazy what a simple google search can do:
"This switches from a love song to disco to a ballad sung by a robot voice and back again. "'Touch' was the first track we started working on and almost the last to finish because it was the most complex," Bangalter told NME. "We recorded 250 tracks to make that one song.
"It's an interesting metaphor for the concept of the album," he continued. "The similarities between the hard drive and the brain. It's about the random way that memories are 'downloaded' into your train of thought. The most important records in music, whether it's Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd, or The White Albumor Sgt. Pepper or Quadrophenia or Tommy, are the ones that take you on a journey for miles and miles."
Sources:
( https://genius.com/13549374 )
( https://www.songfacts.com/facts/daft-punk/touch )
( https://www.reddit.com/r/DaftPunk/comments/1iys4w/what_the_hell_is_up_with_touch/ )
( https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107859455862/ )
@axeld1557
it's okay to cry, let's cry together
@hcgraham1213
It’s just so sad
@DOGSON_705
I needed this..
@littlepoppy6094
😢
@rumithepurr
GG
@manurosales_
im devastated
@Henry_Chroma
So, this is actually Daft Punk's “Ending theme”. Gorgeous.
@LucaMusicBeats
they are great!🥳🥳
@hosmangalvez9848
Sad
@Onexrys
Yea...