While working with
Chris Caswell, Daft Punk mentioned they had been heavily influenced by the 1974 film
Phantom of the Paradise, starring Paul Williams. Caswell offered to arrange a meeting between Williams and the duo, leading to Williams singing on the track and writing lyric treatments for a few tracks on the album. Daft Punk had an initial melody for the song, but, when Caswell arranged a counter-melody for string accompaniment, Daft Punk preferred Caswell's. This became the melody Williams sang to and led to Caswell receiving a songwriter credit for the track. "Touch" is a
multi-part ballad in
common time. The track is performed in the key of
F-sharp minor, with a tempo of 91
BPM except for a faster middle section at 116 BPM. Music journalists described the song musically as
disco, Mark Richardson of
Pitchfork described the track as "over-the-top" and ambitious, with a "Cluster-fied spacey intro, some
showtune balladry, a 4/4 disco section complete with swing music trills, and a sky-scraping choir, all in service of a basic lyrical idea: love is the answer and you've got to hold on." Nick Decosemo of
Mixmag compared "Touch" to rock ballads heard in musicals similar to
Jesus Christ Superstar, additionally calling it "part
Brian Eno ambient experimentation, part
musical theatre, part
gospel epic". == "2021 Epilogue" version ==