Listening to this song this morning, I had an entire false memory unfold in my head, very warm and real. I was meeting Meathead (a.k.a. Rob Reiner) from "All in the Family" on a street corner in Greenwhich Village in 1971. It was just a flash vision, but everything felt very warm and 16-millimeter, that whole okra-and-mustard 70s atmosphere. Obviously this is before Meathead met Sally Struthers, otherwise he wouldn't be needing a woman. We were both wearing bell bottoms and Army jackets, of course. There was a kind of nostalgic relief in the whole watery audio-memory: the mellowed Brubeck-ian piano riff, the hand-claps and nasal Fender riffs, some dude named Leroy-boy.
Consider Todd Rundgren's voice. It's very Carole King. There's something so completely unrevealing about it emotionally, but also as comforting as a homemade multi-color knit blanket on a rainy day, especially when he sings, that empty feeling's just about to end.
This is off the first album, 1971's "Runt," which was the "band" name that he used as a front early on, before becoming a full-time production wizard, twiddling knobs and spinning rip-curl guitar solos for Kiss and Hall & Oates, among others.
P.S. The song "I Saw the Light," pictured above, is from the album Something/Anything? from 1972, which is considered the masterpiece, apparently.
3 comments:
Ah, Tahd. What to say? I love the way the vocals sound so half-hearted and artificial.
It's all folding together here. H&O, Todd. I was about to drop some nasty Nazz on you, but I'll have to wait for the dust to settle. Instead, I'm gonna have to go all Elizabethan now. Be warned.
Something from Lady Nevelle's Booke?
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