Right around the time Vice-Asshole J.D. Vance dropped by to defend hate speech and inform EU leaders that they could go fuck themselves, Alicia surprised me with a candlelight dinner and my favorite Rioja to celebrate my three-month anniversary as an EU consultant.

“You’ve had a rough couple of weeks and I wanted to remind you that the end is in sight.”

“I’ll drink to that! I still can’t understand why our glorious leaders were shocked by what Vance had to say. Trump and his loonies have made it very clear that they hate our ‘wokeness,’ our policies and our values—it’s not like they were hiding anything.”

“It seems the news gets worse every day.”

“It’s not all bad. I read somewhere that both Trump and Macron predicted that World War III is right around the corner and those clowns have never been right about anything.”

“More wine?”

“Fuck, yes!”

“What shall we toast?”

“That all we have to do is survive the next three months and we’ll be moving to a non-NATO, neutral country.”

After we raised our glasses, Alicia wisely decided to change the subject. “Have you decided what the altrockchick is going to do next?”

“I have no idea . . . the World War II Songs review was pretty intense . . . I can’t handle anything too dark, especially now . . . I don’t know . . . something . . . ANYTHING far removed from war, culture wars and geopolitics!”

I hope I don’t have to explain how that outburst led me to Todd Rundgren.

*****

What inspired Todd Rundgren to “make this crazy record called A Wizard, a True Star” echoed Neil Young’s reaction to the popularity of Harvest.

“I became aware,” says Rundgren, “that I was doing things out of habit, writing short pop tunes, recycling the same methods at all the same places. After listening to it over and over, Something/Anything? had started to lose its cachet for me. I felt like I’d been musically lazy, like I wasn’t expanding or incorporating anything new into the music. I tend to think it’s more valuable when an artist, myself or some other artist whom I admire, does something that they haven’t done before. I don’t like formulas, and I’m personally incapable of following them, anyway.”

—-Paul Myers, A Wizard, A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio. Jawbone Press, London, 2010. (Kobo version, p. 106)

Neil headed for the ditch; Todd landed in New York, dabbled in psychedelics, and with plenty of help from Moogy Klingman, built a recording studio designed to handle sound experimentation. They soon learned that a DIY project may not have been the wisest choice:

. . . “We didn’t know about wiring up a studio or how to build walls, but we just kind of did it. We built a little drum booth and a control room, nailing all the two-by-fours ourselves. I built the console myself. And this was during my whole psychedelic period, so I was taking peyote buttons and wiring the studio at the same time . . .”

“Todd brought in sets of vibes, organs, other keyboards, all this equipment,” Klingman recalls. “Fairchild equalizers, some Dolby stuff, as well as his Stephens 16-track machine. It was breaking down all the time and this guy, John Stephens, was the only guy who knew how to fix it. We’d have to call him long distance in England. That studio was barely held together with band-aids and bubble gum.” (ibid)

The boys managed to overcome their lack of experience in studio-building through trial and error, but the length of the LP created some sonic deficiencies. Todd acknowledged the problem, gave listeners a heads-up in the liner notes and recommended a compensatory solution: “I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but due to the fact that you can only put so much music on a piece of plastic before you start to lose some of the sound, and due to the fact that I have exceeded what is considered the practical norm by at least 6 or 7 minutes per side, you will probably want to crack up your Victrola as loud as it will go to get the full enjoyment contained on this here LP. Thanx.” Like Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, the album is TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME.

As for the musical content, Todd devised a two-part “flight plan.” Side one would be a “chaotic opening” with seamless tracks; side two would “settle down into recognizable forms” more along the lines of his previous work. Fans hoping for an album full of songs like “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light” were immediately turned off by the apparent disarray of “The International Feel (in 8),” the suite that filled all of side one. As it was impossible to reproduce the sounds created in the studio on stage, going on tour to create a buzz was out of the question—and because Todd refused to release any singles from the album (for good reason), music buyers were left with a choice between the whole shebang or nothing at all, and most chose the latter. Despite several positive critical reviews (including one from Patti Smith), the album peaked at #86 on the Billboard charts and failed to chart in the U.K.

In my opinion, the fault is not with Todd Rundgren, dear Brutus, but with the moribund habits of music consumers, which mirror the behavior of grocery shoppers. Once they latch onto a brand, they refuse to consider alternatives and complain to high heaven when the store runs out of Chicken of the Sea and are forced to settle for Star-Kist or Bumble Bee. At the time, Todd Rundgren had been crowned by the industry as “the next Carole King” and the last thing those consumers expected was that Todd would go crazy and align himself with the burgeoning progressive scene.

Had those shoppers taken a minute to chill out and truly listen to the music, they would have realized that Todd Rundgren still had a gift for crafting beautiful melodies and motifs, had not lost touch with rock ‘n’ roll values and confirmed his reputation as a top-tier arranger. They might have also learned that Todd was feigning modesty when he claimed that the album “had no definite meaning.” They would also discover that the “utopian ideals” expressed in the music were exceptionally relevant to time and place.

As much as I like to get my father’s goat when I tag him with Baby Boomer stereotypes, I deeply admire the idealism that motivated many members of that generation. While living under the ever-present threat of nuclear armageddon, they embraced the dream of making the world a better place. They were joined in their quest by artists like John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs (to name a few) and inspirational leaders like JFK and MLK. Ted Kennedy’s eulogy to Bobby also described the ethos of the generation: “They saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” Though the Boomers fell short of creating Utopia, they led the fight to rid the world of stagnant norms that limited human potential, extending the right to dream of a better life to women and minorities. Though the generation is often accused of hopeless naivete, their belief that “anything is possible” ignited a burst of creativity in all the arts and opened the door for musicians to explore the infinite possibilities in music.

Todd Rundgren’s alleged crime was to shore up the generational belief that anything was possible. I would chalk up the lack of commercial success to poor timing: had he released the album in 1967, when the top five albums on the Billboard 200 fell into the categories of experimental pop or psychedelia, he might have had better luck in the charts. In 1973, the mood in America had become much darker, the movies more violent and the music on the pop charts much lighter. Personally, I’d take Todd Rundgren in mad scientist mode over Tony Orlando and Dawn in any era.

As it turned out, A Wizard, A True Star proved to have more staying power than “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree.” The album has been cited by contemporary electronic/experimental types like Trent Reznor, Daft Punk and Frank Ocean as a major influence on their work. In 2019, Todd finally had the technology to give live multimedia performances of the entire album to enthusiastic audiences until the pandemic hit, then came back for an encore in 2021 with twenty-nine gigs spread from coast to coast.

Though many influential albums prove to be piss-poor listening experiences, I thoroughly enjoyed all fifty-six minutes of the ride and looked forward to listening to it seven days in a row. There are some cringe-worthy moments and sometimes I wish he’d done this instead of that—but Todd’s palpable energy, the ingenious twists and turns, and his full commitment to his vision knocked me out every time.

I also found the experience to be surprisingly therapeutic. In a time when the human race barrels down the road of self-destruction to a soundtrack of pop stars incessantly and mindlessly regurgitating the same old shit, A Wizard a True Star reminds us that human creativity is a wonderful thing.

One final note: I decided to respect the artist’s intent by not posting separate videos, but you can listen to the entire album courtesy of Toddzilla on YouTube.

Let’s do it!

“The International Feel (in 8)”

Warning! Presenting the suite in the form of individual tracks tends to highlight weaknesses over strengths. Please remember that the suite was designed for listening in full, and from that perspective, “The International Feel (in 8)” is an exceptionally strong composition.

All songs, instruments and vocals credited to Todd Rundgren except where noted. 

“International Feel”: The festivities begin with a single expanding low note followed by a series of synthesized crescendos combining an engine revving up and a synth sound that evokes an image of “reaching for the stars.” Things calm down for a bit when Todd enters on keyboard and bass playing a pattern at comparatively low volume with the chords F, Eb and Bb, each with an added C to establish a subtle drone effect. After a few good whacks on the drums, the levels rise to full volume with Todd delivering a heartfelt vocal over layers of sound driven by a fabulous thumping bass. The opening verse presents a challenge to the listener along the lines of “I know this isn’t what you were expecting but bear with me . . . because there’s always more”:

Here we are again, the start of the end,
but there’s More
I only want to see if you’ll give up on me
But there’s always More

And he ain’t kidding!

There is More, International Feel
And there’s More, Interplanetary Deals
But there’s More, Interstellar Appeal
Still there’s More, Universal Ideal
Still there’s More, International Feel

Essentially he is encouraging listeners to continually expand their musical horizons and refuse to settle for the tried-and-true.

I swear something lies
In your ears and your eyes
‘Cause there’s More
You hear and you see yet you do not believe
That there’s always More

When performing “International Feel” on tour, Todd entered the scene wearing a NASA spacewalk suit, reminding listeners of a time when the Americans, through a combination of developing science, determination and a whole lot of improvisation expanded our understanding of outer space and our planet’s place in the cosmos. “International Feel” is such a thrilling opener that I feel a bit sad when I sense the song is headed for the fade . . . but then I remind myself there’s always more. In this case, the “more” is signaled by the echo-patched repetition of  “I know, I know, I know, I know . . . ” emerging from the back of sound field like a voice from a dream and melding seamlessly into . . .

“Never Never Land” (Comden, Green, Styne, composers; Moogy Klingman, piano; Rick Springfield, pedal steel guitar): Sometime in my younger days I developed a curiosity about what life was like for my parents when they were my age, and when my father told me that he only had access to three network channels and one educational channel, I was thunderstruck. I asked him, “Didn’t you get bored?” and he replied, “Not at all. It was like baseball before expansion—the quality was better because you had to be the best to get on TV. And there were always specials that came around once a year and everybody tuned in for the specials.”

The two specials he cherished the most were The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan. The former taught him about the need to overcome fears and collaborate with others; from Peter Pan he learned that while childhood cannot last forever, we should never lose touch with the spontaneous creativity and unbridled imagination of the child.

Todd’s take on Peter Pan is similar to my father’s and much more appealing than “I hope I die before I get old.”

It may be miles beyond the moon
Or right there where you stand
Just keep an open mind
And then suddenly you’ll find
Never never land . . .

. . . For once you have found your way there
You will never, never grow old
And that’s my home where dreams are born
And time is never planned

Todd treats this classic song with great respect, singing in his sweetest voice and savoring every bit of the lyrics. The dreamscape background has a magical feel, and though I’m reluctant to end the dream, Todd executes a perfect transition by launching into the next track as he holds the closing note for a few seconds.

“Tic Tic Tic It Wears Off”: I love this spunky little interval with its happy piano, weird bursts of sound and the rare occurence of the bass guitar handling the melody. Alas, it only lasts for a little over a minute before cacophony rears its head . . .

“You Need Your Head”: This wild pseudo-rock number finds Todd engaged in the ultimate bitch session aimed at people who disconnect brains from body. While it features a sizzling guitar solo towards the end, the vocal arrangement is so intense that it’s difficult to appreciate the often punny lyrics without a scorecard. I do take serious exception to his assertion that “You don’t need your crotch” because my crotch and brain are intricately and permanently wired, but I appreciate how the change in sound and mood expands the reach of the suite.

Next up: cacophony with a purpose.

“Rock and Roll Pussy”: The intensity continues in this second rock number, which some people believe is an attack on John Lennon. I would say that some people don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. From Songfacts:

In this song, Rundgren takes on musicians who sing about changing the world but then do nothing about it. The line, “get up and see the revolution on the TV” seemed to be directed at John Lennon and his song “Revolution.” This led to a war of words between Lennon and Rundgren that played out in the press. In September 1973, Rundgren did an interview with the British music magazine Melody Maker where he said, “John Lennon ain’t no revolutionary. He’s a f— idiot, man. Shouting about revolution and acting like an ass. It just makes people feel uncomfortable. All he really wants to do is get attention for himself, and if revolution gets him that attention, he’ll get attention through revolution.”

Rundgren would later say that “Rock and Roll Pussy” was not specifically about Lennon, telling Spinner, “One can say that John Lennon was guilty possibly of some of the finger-pointing that the song evinces, but it’s mostly the whole idea of talk versus action and not specific to any one person.”

The first verse backs up Todd’s assertion that the attack was generic: “Beat it, beat it, beat your guitar/Smash it, smash it, ’til it sees stars/Rip it, rip it, rip it to shreds/Throw down your axe and then jump into bed.” I don’t remember Lennon engaging in guitar destruction a la Jimi Hendrix or Pete Townshend. I agree with Todd that Lennon was only a part-time revolutionary, as explained in my review of Imagine, and I will give him credit for the justifiable outrage expressed in the song.

“Dogfight Giggle”: You want cacophony, you’ll get cacophony . . . this experiment in musique concrète falls a bit short of capturing the sound of dogs (I hear rats, bats and squirrels), but the closing line (“Don’t you think of anything but sex”) does reflect the single-minded orientation of a dog with a boner . . . and a man with a boner.

“You Don’t Have to Camp Around”: Todd wisely flips the script from raucous to melodiousness in this not-so-curious tale about . . . well, it’s either about a wannabe glam rocker, a boy developing a curiosity about alternatives to heterosexuality or someone who just wants to explore his feminine side. Naturally, “Daddy don’t like it” while Mommy’s on the fence but Todd is somewhere in the middle: “You’re allowed to try it and I point no fingers.” What troubles Todd isn’t the boy’s latent gayness but his embrace of cliché gay stereotypes: “Save the satin undies, don’t pluck out your eyebrows/Stow the mincy lisping, you don’t have to camp around.” My take on Todd Rundgren was that he hated conformity in any form and rejected the notion that members of any social group would be expected to behave in a stereotypical manner. I hear a friend giving another friend some helpful advice and his stance is not in the least bit homophobic.

And the sweet music is quite welcome after three minutes of musical riotousness.

“Flamingo”: Our second instrumental piece is quite cinematic. In the upbeat segments I see a man navigating his way through a downtown area full of shoppers, a smile on his face as he enjoys the bustling atmosphere. He is on his way to meet his sweetie for lunch at their favorite restaurant. He turns a corner and sees his lady friend standing outside about twenty-five feet away. Suddenly he stops in his tracks as the music slows down and the mood shifts to uh-oh. There’s a man with her! It looks like her ex! He lights her cigarette and the two share a laugh! What to do, what to do? Our hero returns to the bustle, admonishes himself for jumping to conclusions and hurries back to the meeting place. He turns the corner with refreshed confidence and . . . oh, no! It’s a reprise of the uh-oh segment! Now they’re kissing! Crestfallen, he turns away from the scene of disappointment and heads back to Main Street . . . then remembers that hot little number working at the soda fountain who flirted with him only yesterday. Spring in his step restored, he arrives at the soda fountain just in time for her lunch break and immediately asks if she would dine with him. The scene suddenly shifts to the restaurant where he was going to meet his former honey. He asks for a table near his ex while the music turns to whirling and wacky. The scene fades with our hero giving the hot little number a passionate kiss while flipping the bird in the direction of his former love interest.

As this may seem like a weird interpretation, I will now call Mr. Rundgren to the stand in my defense:

“There were sounds that make you think of things,” he says, “Like frickin’ dogs fighting, laughter or song fragments that don’t complete themselves. All these little musical instrumental bits that are supposed to create some sort of imagery without the benefit of lyrics. It was very ADD, actually, and I wouldn’t dwell on whether a musical idea was complete or not.” (ibid)

In this case, the musical idea is complete—and a brilliant composition it is.

“Zen Archer”: Todd Rundgren is a dreamer who also happens to be a realist, fully aware that there is a dark side in the human psyche. Here he explores that dark side through the character called the Zen Archer, described by contributor Dave Lister as “a sort of anti-cupid, a killer of love and all things good” in an annotation attached to the Genius lyrics for the song.

The song opens to the rhythm of a martial march, but the celebratory intent of that mode is weakened by a verse pattern dominated by minor chords, dissonant changes and an avoidance of resolution (Gm, Cm, Gm, Cm, Eb, D, F). Todd begins the tale using a combination of falsetto and upper range explorations, relaying a sense of feminine empathy as he describes the sad scene:

Pretty bird with feathers falling
Pretty as a lady calling
For her pink and midnight lover
As she stares into the water

And a yellow moon is rising
And there can’t be no disguising
That the pretty bird is dying
With a silver arrow lying at its side

The next phase is marked by a declining chord pattern (Bb, Am, Ab, Gm, Gb, Fm, Eb, D) and lyrics that connect the incident to the insane human urge to kill:

Rivers of blood, oceans of tears,
Life without death, and death without reason

Todd takes things one step further, revealing that this single tragedy represents a larger threat to human kind:

To the whole United Nations,
To your greatest expectations
To the moment that you realize
As a dark figure slips from out of the shadow

Pretty bird closes its eyes, pretty bird dies
Another pretty thing dead on the end of the shaft
Of the Zen Archer

Because most people associate Zen with harmless meditation and raising consciousness, you may wonder why Todd labeled his villain a Zen Archer. There are two possible explanations. The first involves the secondary meaning of Zen from Merriam-Webster: “a state of calm attentiveness.” This implies that the killer lacks both empathy and any sense of guilt; he considers himself a professional, detached from feeling. The second possibility comes from Dave Lister in his commentary on Genius:

Zen In The Art Of Archery is a 1948 book by German philosopher Eugen Herrigel, who studied Kyūdō, a form of Japanese archery, when he lived in Japan in the 1920s. The book helped to introduce Zen to western audiences, and its title inspired a number of other works. There’s no menace or murder in the book, but its title suggests Rundgren must have been at least passingly familiar with it.

Thanks to Wikipedia, we have access to Herrigel’s explanation of the merger of Zen and archery: “The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull’s-eye which confronts him. This state of unconsciousness is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill.” It’s more than likely that Herrigel considered archery a harmless sport worthy of a spot in the Olympics and it never would have occurred to him that psychopaths would adopt the practice of Zen archery for evil purposes.

Todd’s insight into how cold-blooded killers come to be is spot-on: “A man in parts forgotten/With an attitude outlook that is rotten/And an attitude to match it/Finds relief inside a hatchet.” It’s always the lone wolf, the social reject, the bitter loser seeking either revenge or fame in infamy. Todd has the prick axing someone in Boulder, Colorado, but I could find no confirmation of an axe attack in that lovely city; it seems he needed something to rhyme with “Justifiability is in the hands of the beholder.”

The farewell verse dispenses with the fare-thee-well and leaves us with a warning:

To the promise kept and broken
To the love that’s never spoken
Just as surely as I’m in your ears
A dark figure slips from out of the shadow

In the fifty-plus years following the album’s release, we have managed to create thousands of Zen Archers—terrorists, school shooters, serial killers and sociopathic leaders—all determined to rob us of the joy and hope we need to survive and move forward. Many have been enabled through the cesspool we know as social media, a part of cyberspace filled with misinformation defended in the name of free speech by billionaire sociopaths who take no responsibility for their inaction.

People, we are deep, deep doo-doo.

“Just Another Onionhead; Da Da Dali”: Ah, there’s nothing as satisfying as stepping from darkness into the light . . . except an orgasm, of course.

Though the words may seem nonsensical at times, “Just Another Onionhead” questions the purpose of abstract religious rituals while “Da Da Dali” questions the purpose of Salvador Dali (an artist whose appeal completely escapes me). “The blessing of the turtles” refers to sacred status attached to said animal by many religions, including Native American beliefs, Hinduism and Buddhism. As for the rabbits . . . I think y’all know about the Easter bunny. Early Christians often had images of rabbits carved on their gravestones (like Christmas, another ripoff of pagan beliefs). When Todd responds to these practices with “Tell them Groucho said you’re just another onionhead” and “I’ll shave my skull instead, be just another onionhead,” he’s really saying, “None of this makes a lick of sense to me!”

As for Dali, Todd essentially exposes the artist as a purveyor of shock value whose artworks have no meaning beyond creating controversy (and art sales to the stupid).

I love the arrangement, particularly the sheer genius of repurposing “Toot Toot Tootsie” and the calliope effect backing “just another onionhead.” I’ve heard the song countless times and I always get the giggles.

“When the Shit Hits the Fan; Sunset Blvd.”: This rather intricate composition combines pop, power pop, rock, R&B, electronic, experimental, progressive and likely many sub-genres I’ve never heard of. I’m also convinced that Todd used every instrument and gadget in the studio to pull it off.

At its heart (in the verses) it’s the strongest rocker on the album with Todd hitting the blue notes on the verse lines before handing it over to a vocal ensemble of Todds for the chorus. He plays the role of mild paranoiac extremely well, freaked out about imaginary disasters (the Chrysler Building falling in his yard), real threats thousands of miles away (the bloody IRA) and the scary experience of barreling down Sunset Boulevard without brakes (but still determined to get his ass back there). The latter incident involves something between self-awareness and sleight of hand, according to drummer N.D. Smart:

Smart and Rundgren would rise each day at around 10 a.m. and head down to Sunset Boulevard for breakfast before a full day at ID Sound. “Todd drove like a maniac down that hill each morning,” says Smart. “It was terrifying.” (ibid)

Somebody cut your brakes, my ass.

The song ends in slowdown mode, landing on a comparatively dissonant note that takes us full circle back to . . .

“Le Feel Interacionale” (Performed by Todd Rundgren and Moogy & The Rhythm Kings): We simply had to be a reprise of the opening salvo to strengthen the sense of unity after such a diverse set of tracks. The most noticeable difference in the arrangement is the dominance of John Siomos on the drum kit, who pounds those toms and kick like there’s no tomorrow. His work also blends extremely well with John Siegler’s thumping bass, always a sign of an excellent rhythm section. And I fucking love the ear-to-ear panning of Todd’s electric guitar on the fade, one of the best applications of panning I’ve ever heard. The strength of the reprise makes me want to listen to the whole side again and again . . . but I have a responsibility to my readers to flip the disc and present a different side of Todd Rundgren.

I’ll get over it.

“A True Star”

All songs composed by Todd Rundgren except where noted. 

“Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Feel”: Speaking of John Siegler . . .

Siegler recalls being encouraged to bring “whatever we wanted” to the music, and had particularly fond memories of tracking ‘Sometimes I Don’t Know How to Feel,’ which once again included the Brecker Brothers horn section. “That’s one of my favorite Todd songs,” say Siegler. “I remember he just sat down and played that on piano and we learned the chords. Everyone was hearing these great chord changes, reacting and coming up with parts that complemented what he was doing. Later, when the track was done, I heard the melody and the lyrics for the first time and it was just amazing. (ibid)

This is clearly one of Todd Rundgren’s strongest compositions and the backing band performs the piece with genuine enthusiasm. Since I currently lack access to a piano I can’t verify the chords on Ultimate Guitar, but the obvious dominance of minor sevenths tells me that the contributor is on the right track.

Damn, I miss my piano. And double damn, I forgot that this song deals with the state of the world, something I obviously wanted to avoid. Well, I’ve gone this far . . .

“Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Feel” is about the realization that our world is a dangerous place and that there are people out there who see no problem with cruelty. This sad “aha” moment used to be an experience common in young adulthood, but due to the frequency of school shootings in the United States, the realization hits young children and robs them of what should have been an extended period of relative innocence. The narrator is shocked by the cruelty and indifference he encounters and in response, he becomes distrustful of other people:

Sometimes I don’t know what to feel
Everything I thought that I knew starts to look so unreal
There’s a ringing in my head that keeps me awake at night

Sometimes I don’t know what is right
Today I saw a car crush my little dog under its wheel
It did not even stop, it just sped off and out of sight

Sometimes I just feel so afraid
But I know that no one else has it made
So if I just believe in myself
I won’t need no help from nobody else and I can make it alone

One of the most important things kids learn in school is how to play well and collaborate with other students. A cruel, immoral environment causes people to turn inward, denying society of people willing to work together to make the world a better place.

Instead of looking forward to living a happy life, the shock of living in a world where most people are out for themselves leads a young adult to take a defensive stance, but they learn that self-protection does not shield them from the fear that the world is on the brink of self-destruction. The reluctance to trust anyone turns friends into mere acquaintances.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do
Someone said the world’s gonna end and I think it’s true
I thought there was some love in the world
But I guess I’m wrong

Sometimes I just feel so alone
I don’t want to admit to my friends that I feel confused
I wonder what I’d do with myself if the world was gone
Something makes me stay on my feet

Don’t you dare admit to defeat
And if I tell myself it’s alright
I can comfort myself through the night
And watch another day dawn

I’m sure that many people in the United States share those sentiments right now. The country that was once a shining beacon now exports cruelty and inflicts cruelty on their own citizens without regret. No one in the United States can escape responsibility for transforming their country into a mean-spirited shithole where thousands of people lose their jobs through no fault of their own, where those who are different are scorned and denied basic human rights. The people of the United States chose this government in a legal and fairly-run election and the potential threat posed by the winners was well-advertised.

Ugh. I didn’t want to go there, but Alicia was right. I picked the wrong time to try to save the world. I still intend to do what I can to improve the lives of human beings, but my odds of success are slim and none.

“Does Anybody Love You?”: This brief piece of jaunty pop concerns the two qualities that make some people quite unpleasant: beauty and brains. Both have been found to be contributory causes of pernicious arrogance. I’m not bad-looking and I think I have a functioning brain, but many people who meet me assume that I must be a snob. Once I drop a few F-bombs into the conversation they start to relax a bit.

In the song, Todd confronts a super-smart woman with two obsessions. The first is her habit of using big words to impress others with her superior intelligence; the second involves the hours she spends in front of a mirror ensuring that her hair is right, her skin free of imperfections and nothing is dripping from her nose. No wonder Todd asks, “Does anybody really love you?” How can anyone relate to someone so self-absorbed?

My favorite lines form an improvement over the old saw, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

You’re so lovely, so wise
You could make Venus crawl
But love between the ugly is the most beautiful love of all

I had a male friend back in the States who I really wanted to fuck, but when I tried to woo him, he politely (and with some embarrassment) explained that he was only attracted to women with crooked teeth. Well! I wasn’t about to modify my pearly whites for a one-time lay, but we became good friends in large part because I respected his fetish.

“Medley”

• “I’m So Proud” (Curtis Mayfield)
• “Ooh Baby Baby” (Smokey Robinson, Warren “Pete” Moore)
• “La La Means I Love You” (William Hart, Thom Bell)
• “Cool Jerk” (Donald Storball)

This may sound weird, but once again I wish I could use Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine to travel back to the 60s and spend whole days listening to AM radio. The pop charts were dominated by two of my favorite genres—rock and soul—and performed by all-time greats (and a few who should have become all-time greats).

As a certified Baby Boomer, Todd would have immersed himself in that music and the influence would give many of his songs a combined rock-soul feel. He explained his decision to perform a medley of some of his favorite soul songs thusly:

Rundgren insists that, while the so-called soul medley may have appeared “somewhat incongruous,” at first, it was all part of the hallucinogenic storyline of the record as a whole. “It’s like opening a hole in your memory, and suddenly these memories—soul records you loved, say—start leaking out from who knows where. That’s another aspect of psychedelic drugs sometimes, hearing and seeing things that would be familiar to you if you weren’t so psychedelic. You suddenly see them differently and they convey a different meaning.” (ibid)

With Moogy & The Rhythm Kings backing his vocals, Todd turns in a set of excellent renditions loaded with spirit with one exception—his approach to “Cool Jerk” sounds more frantic than cool. Still, he wound up batting .750, so it was worth the effort.

“Hungry for Love”: Todd goes macho on me and I am not impressed. I’m pretty sure that the song is an attempt to ridicule men with excess testosterone, but I couldn’t find supporting evidence to confirm my instincts. As it is, I wouldn’t fuck that voice if he had the power to crown me Queen of the World so I could put all his ilk in their rightful place—on their fucking knees.

“I Don’t Want to Tie You Down”: Now this feels like the real Todd Rundgren—sensitive, thoughtful and empathetic. I’m a sucker for relationship-as-refuge songs, and this is one of the best. We always relate to each other in the context of our times (as proven by our experience of the pandemic) and Todd establishes the context in the opening verses:

Sometimes it’s hard to look up under
The times we’re going through
I scratch my head and stare and wonder
How to face the day anew

But it gives my life a bit more meaning
To feel in love with you, so heavy
I don’t want to weigh you down, oh baby
I don’t want to tie you down

It’s a perfectly lovely piano song with natural, conversational phrasing over a relatively subdued background. I’m not exactly sure how Todd defined “the times we’re going through,” as the 1973-1975 recession would not begin until much later in the year. Nixon’s landslide? The never-ending war in Vietnam? Your guess is as good as mine. The salient point is that a loving relationship gives meaning to our lives, and not even Donald Trump can take that away from us.

“Is It My Name?”: Hmm. More macho stuff . . . Todd can’t figure out why the girl won’t make a commitment, throwing out a range of theories (“My voice goes so high you would think I was gay/But I play my guitar in such a man-cock way”) before fixating on his name. I understand his frustration with a woman who likes to hang out with him but withholds her love, but I don’t think outrage is his best choice for resolving the problem. I do like the rock ‘n’ roll fury of the song—there’s too much instrumentation to qualify as proto-punk but close to it.

“Just One Victory”: Our journey through Todd Rundgren’s mini-cosmos ends with a song that became a crowd favorite and should become a crowd favorite for any Americans living in the present day who would like nothing more than to see Trump vanish into political oblivion.

From a musical perspective, the song is anthemic, performed with motivational power to last a lifetime. Todd’s passionate, upbeat vocal is strengthened by the chorus of Todds engaged in vocal overlays (more call-and-echo than call-and-response), giving the piece the feel of a spiritual. Todd is backed by a full band at full strength, but I have to give a big shout-out to David Sanborn (formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) for a raft of thrilling riffs and counterpoints on the alto sax. The dominant metaphor is one that nearly all Americans (and a few Europeans) will appreciate: football!

I will now present the lyrics in their entirety (with period interpretations in italics) and violate my pledge not to post videos of single tracks. As future Queen of the World, I hereby demand that all Americans with functioning brains read the lyrics, take them to heart, listen to the song in full and get off their asses to save their country from self-destruction so I can get back to saving the world!

“Just One Victory” by Todd Rundgren

We’ve been waiting so long,
We’ve been waiting so long,
We’ve been waiting for the sun to rise and shine
Shining still to give us the will

Can you hear me, the sound of my voice?
I am here to tell you I have made my choice
I’ve been listening to what’s been going down
There’s just too much talk and gossip going ’round (misinformation from social media and your government)

You may think that I’m a fool, but I know the answer
Words become a tool, anyone can use them (bullshit peddled by the far-right)
Take the golden rule, as the best example (do unto others . . . instead of demonizing them)
Eyes that have seen will know what I mean

The time has come to take the bull by the horns
(Hold that line, baby hold that line, get up boys and hit ’em one more time)
We’ve been so downhearted, we’ve been so forlorn
(We may be losing now but we can’t stop trying, so hold that line, baby hold that line)
We get weak and we want to give in
(Hold that line, baby hold that line, get up boys and hit ’em one more time)
But we still need each other if we want to win
(We may be losing now but we can’t stop trying, so hold that line, baby hold that line)

If you don’t know what to do about a world of trouble
You can pull it through if you need to and if
You believe it’s true, it will surely happen
Shining still, to give us the will

We’ve been waiting so long,
We’ve been waiting so long,
We’ve been waiting for the sun to rise and shine
Shining still to give us the will

Bright as the day, to show us the way
Somehow, someday,
We need just one victory and we’re on our way (well, I think you need more than one victory, but it’s a start)
Prayin’ for it all day and fightin’ for it all night
Give us just one victory, it will be all right

We may feel about to fall but we go down fighting (without violence, please)
You will hear the call if you only listen
Underneath it all we are here together
Shining still to give us the will
Bright as the day, to show us the way

Somehow, someday,
(Hold that line, baby hold that line, get up boys and hit ’em one more time)
We need just one victory and we’re on our way
(We may be losing now but we can’t stop trying, so hold that line, baby hold that line)

Prayin’ for it all day and fightin’ for it all night
(Hold that line, baby hold that line, get up boys and hit ’em one more time)
Give us just one victory, it will be all right
(We may be losing now but we can’t stop trying, so hold that line, baby hold that line)

*****

To this day, A Wizard, A True Star remains a polarizing experience. In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Ben Sisario described it as “an endurance test of stylistic diversity, with just three fully realized songs . . .  stranded in the midst of so much half-baked sonic decoration.” In a relatively recent piece published on Mojo, Barney Hoskyns called it “the greatest album of all time . . . a dizzying, intoxicating rollercoaster ride of emotions and genre mutations . . . more bravely futuristic than any ostensibly cutting-edge electro-pop being made in the 21st Century.”

Both reactions are over-the-top. Sisario didn’t bother to listen to the album in depth because he couldn’t get past his “full song” filter. Hoskyns made the mistake of comparing Rundgren’s work to 21st Century music. I could probably name hundreds of albums from the 20th Century that might seem like the greatest album of all time in comparison to 21st Century crap.

During my research, I noticed a near-universal reaction to A Wizard, A True Star from fans sharing their opinions on Reddit and various lyrics-focused websites: “It takes a while to get used to it but once you listen to it a few times, it starts to grow on you.” The album might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly worth spending a measly hour of your life to give it a shot.

See ya!