Songfacts®:

• "See The Light" is one of the earliest songs by The Jeff Healey Band, which formed in Toronto in 1985. The song was written by Healey, who was blind and played guitar sitting down with the instrument flat on his lap. Healey was also the singer in the band, which was a classic power trio rounded out by bass player Joe Rockman and drummer Tom Stephen.
  
  Healey was 19 in July 1985 when Stevie Ray Vaughan played a gig in Toronto and brought him on stage to perform. The venue was stocked with members of the press that got the word out, and Healey got lots of offers to play shows. He needed a band - quickly - so he contacted locals Rockman and Stephen and they became The Jeff Healey Band.
  
  They had no trouble getting gigs but getting a record deal was a lot harder. They released "See The Light" as a single on a label called Forte that they set up, and used that to prove they had the goods. It took a while, but they finally landed a deal with Arista Records, and in 1988 they made the song the title track of their debut album.
• The song is very much a showcase for Jeff Healey's guitar work. He could get to notes other guitarists couldn't reach by using his left hand to do the fretwork from above, playing it almost like a percussion instrument. The album cover shows him with the guitar in his lap, demonstrating this technique. Legions of guitarists tried it after listening to him play and quickly learned it's near impossible to play like that. Healey never played conventionally - as soon as he got his first guitar he put it on his lap.
• The title "See The Light" is a not-so-subtle nod to Healey's blindness. He did this throughout his career - the band's biggest hit is "Angel Eyes," which is also on their debut album. Healey felt that being blind made him no better or worse than any other guitarist, pointing out that for every great blind player, there were many terrible blind guitarists. And it didn't hamper his stage presence - Healey would often stand up and dazzle the crowd with tricks like playing with his teeth or with the guitar on the ground.
• The lyric is fairly repetitive but gets the point across: Healey wants his lady to know that there's a light shining from his heart, and it's for her.
  
  The song is one of five on the album that Jeff Healey wrote. "I write about things that everyday people understand," he told Musician magazine. "I won't write about politics, which a lot of people can take or leave. But love between human beings is a natural thing, so we can all relate to it. And if I get to play some guitar in the bargain, then everybody's happy."
• The band made a video for this song showing them in performance, which was an attempt to get record labels interested. Healey, who died of cancer in 2008 at 41, was an electrifying performer, and the video demonstrated that.
• The Jeff Healey Band performed "See The Light" on some high-profile TV shows in 1988, including the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. This kind of blues song wasn't typically suitable for the Carson crowd but the visual of him playing the song in his unique style kept viewers tuned in.