| By his early 20s, Todd Rundgren was not only one of the most up-and-coming music producers of his era, he was also one the age’s most prolific and influential songwriters. Having written, recorded, and produced his first two solo albums in 1970 and 1971, he took his songwriting and creativity to new heights; kicking off 1972 with his massive double album Something/Anything? The album iIncluded a song considered to be one of Rundgren’s classic tracks, composed in only a matter of minutes: “I Saw the Light.”
Todd Rundgren was born on June 22, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He taught himself how to play guitar while engrossing himself in the record collection of his parents. “There was no pop music in our house when I was growing up. Dad built his own hi-fi and played a lot of 20th century orchestral composers – Ravel, Debussy, Richard Rogers, showtunes. Bob Newhart too, even Roger Whittaker. Mum listened to the radio. A friend and I memorized an entire Gilbert & Sullivan libretto, as a way to prove how smart I am. I refused to do well at school – ‘you’re not teaching me anything interesting’. Gilbert & Sullivan’s writing style was very 19th century – it changed the way we hear music. The French impressionists came after that – less traditional, less strictly representational. Ravel represents to me the apotheosis of it all, along with Debussy and Satie.”
Rundgren decided to pursue a career in music immediately following his high school graduation. He began in a blues rock band, but quickly began searching for his own original sound. In 1967, he formed the band Nazz with his then-roommate, bassist Carson Van Osten. Van Osten would later become a writer and artist for Disney Comics. The band was signed by Atlantic Records in 1968, and it was through their first album together that Rudgren first cut his teeth, as both a songwriter and a producer. He recalled that his interest in production arose after watching their first album’s producer, Bill Traut, work quickly through the mixes as they recorded at I.D. Sound Studio in Los Angeles. Rundgren explained: “….So I got it into my head, ‘Well, he’s gone now, so why don’t we just mix it again, more like the way we want it?’ Our engineer didn’t mind if we went and just started diddling around on the board … It was pretty much trial and error.”
Nazz experienced some success with two 1968 singles, written by Rudgren: “Open My Eyes” and “Hello It’s Me.” The band released three albums together, but both Rudgren and Van Osten had left the band before the release of their second album Nazz Nazz in 1969. Rudgren’s departure was due, in part, to his changing musical interests. He was fascinated by the music of Laura Nyro, which struck him with its more complicated melodic and harmonic elements. He told Bill Demain in 2004, that it was “…not just chords that are richer, major and minor sevenths and suspensions and things like that, but the sort of melodic movement and the classical counterpoint elements–that’s one of the things that attracted me. But I know for a fact that her influences were the more sophisticated side of R & B, like Jerry Ragovoy and Mann & Weil and Carole King. That is Laura Nyro’s lineage.”
After leaving Nazz, Rudgren focused his efforts on production. Through his Nazz connections, he found his way to a position as a staff engineer and producer under Albert Grossman, who apparently promised that he would become the highest paid producer in the world… a prophecy that eventually materialized.
While working under Grossman’s wing, Rundgren mostly produced lesser-known folk artists. However, after producing Jesse Winchester’s 1970 debut album, he was recruited by The Band to record their massively successful 1970 album, Stage Fright. The record hit number 5 on the Billboard 200.
In 1970, Rundgren essentially released his first ‘solo’ album, but under the name of the trio that he had put together for the album…Runt. It wasn’t until later re-issues that the album became credited to Rundgren. The record gave him a top 20 single – “We Gotta Get You a Woman” While working on his follow up album, Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, he also produced the self-titled debut album for a new band called Halfnelson, a nascent version of the Sparks.
Rundgren credits the period of time during his second album, when he discovered recreational drugs, for his bout of ‘nonstop’ productivity. This became even more evident on his third record, Something/Anything? An epic double-album, it was the first album officially released under Rundgren’s solo artist name, and featured the hit single “I Saw the Light.”
Something/Anything? was written and recorded in late 1971, first at I.D. Sound Studio in Los Angeles, then the Record Plant in New York, and finally, at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock. He explained that the album evolved as it passed through the different locations: “By the time I got to the actual work of doing Something/Anything?, in those days I didn’t have a studio of my own, so I had to write outside the studio and essentially record in more or less a conventional way. I had a couple of songs done for the record, and I certainly had enough songs to get the record started. I didn’t have all the songs, and indeed when I started Something/Anything?, I didn’t know that it was gonna turn out to be a double album.The stuff started coming out, and when it stopped (laughs), there was a double album. I got into this sort of almost a habit of songwriting that as that particular era was coming to a head, a lot of songs used the basic patterns of major seventh chords ascending and descending.”
It was in this mental space that he wrote “I Saw the Light.” Rundgren recalled, “By the time I sat down to write “I Saw the Light,” I just had this little grain of an idea and 20 minutes later the song, words and all was finished. It just kind of spurted out because things were becoming a bit habitual. For me, I had an aversion to the real flat sort of chords unless you were doing them on a loud guitar, just playing triads and things like that didn’t appeal to me as much on the piano. I like a lot of suspensions. As for the guitar solo, I have no idea what inspired it. It just came out. I knew I had to have a solo and the first part was easy because that was just the melody of the song, but the second half of it I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking at the time but it was all done in the studio. I hadn’t worked it out beforehand. I just started messing with some ideas, and that’s what I came up with. It’s a little bit of The Beatles’ “And Your Bird Can Sing,” I guess, but the exact influence on it I can’t tell you.”
In the wake of Carole King’s Tapestry, one of 1971’s biggest albums, “I Saw the Light” showcases obvious resonances to King’s songwriting and artistry. The keyboard heavy groove, of course, but also the vocals. His own vocal performance mirrors King’s stylistic inflections, as do the background vocals.
Empowered by the confidence he had gained during his first two albums, and by his success in producing other artists, Rundgren’s Something/Anything? was largely an independent project. Most of the instrument parts were recorded by Rundgren himself. He recalled: “I felt I’d accomplished something. I’d never played drums or bass before, though I would hector those that did. Arrangements were built from the rhythm section. I knew exactly what the instruments sound like.” “I Saw the Light” is one of the many songs in which he performed all the parts.
“I Saw the Light” and the rest of the Something/Anything? album were self-produced by Rundgren, with James Lowe credited as the engineer, and John Lee as the assistant engineer. It was released in February 1972, on the Bearsville Label. The album peaked at number 29 on the Billboard 200, and found a top 5 hit with his self-cover of a former Nazz song: “Hello It’s Me.”
“I Saw the Light” hit number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 11 on the Cashbox Top 100. Anticipating the song’s hit potential, Rundgren purposefully chose to place it as the album’s opening track, and credits the practices of Motown for that reasoning.
The song and the album cemented Rundgren’s legacy as not only an exemplary music producer, but also a consummate songwriter and performer. Generations of artists have since sourced his work as inspiration; this song and album, in particular. Axl Rose famously told Rolling Stone magazine in 1989 that his favorite album was Something/Anything. In honor of the record’s 50th anniversary, several artists came together, recording and releasing a cover tribute album entitled Someone/Anyone?
As always, we have the multitracks available to you for download!
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Mix breakdown of “I Saw The Light”
Interview with Louise Goffin and Fernando Perdomo
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