Girl Shy (1924)
I Saw The Light
Tag: todd rundgren
Call out the volunteers ’cause my heart’s a flambé
Harry Wayne McMahan, “The Television Commercial” (1954)
I gotta time it right so it’s warm when you get it
Turn up the heat just a little bit higher
It was a good idea but I think I overdid it
I can’t reach the oven and the kitchen’s on fire…
“But the most important thing that you can take advantage of in the world of music is to see yourself.”
Carol M. Highsmith, “Playing for $1 in a hat…” (2011)
“But the most important thing that you can take advantage of in the world of music is to see yourself. I eventually got to the point where music meant to me self-exploration more than anything else…and I encourage everyone here to be brave in that respect, to be fearless in that respect…that album ‘A Wizard, A True Star’ which was such an abomination to everyone at the time it came out eventually became the signature moment in my career…”
Todd Rundgren – Berklee Commencement Address 2017 – YouTube
Can you hear me, the sound of my voice?
I am here to tell you I have made my choice…
“Just One Victory” by Todd Rundgren
Mated
Everyone asks
Are we some kind of lovers?
Everyone asks what you’re doing with me
I know this is not what they want
They’re afraid you’ve been blinded
But I already know how it’s going to beIf anyone should ask
Say we’re mated
For as long as this life lasts
We are mated
Why else would you be here right now
And you know we’ll still be here tomorrowNobody else understands what I’m doing
Nobody else makes me act in this way
And because they can’t comprehend
What we mean to each other
They won’t leave you alone
So you know what to say…
Jacob Van Loo, An Amorous Couple (ca. 1650)
Your memory seems like a living thing — I never know if I’m imagining
cf. Thomas Eakins, The Thinker: Portrait of Louis N. Kenton (1900) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
Your memory seems like a living thing
I never know if I’m imagining
I look at your face and I know that it’s impossible
Forgetting it’s just a dream
Now I’m hearing your voice saying anything is possible
Forgetting it’s just a dream…
Time heals the wounds that no one can see
But if your heart,
Your heart has been broken
And you don’t wear it on your sleeve
No one can tell,
Your hell goes unspoken
But there’s one thing you must believe…
Untitled photograph by R. E. Scaife (ca. 1919)
The Todd Rundgren Chord
1. Root Position:
2. Upper Structure Inversions/Voicings:
3. Alternate Bass Notes:
I remember that your eyes are green and mine are blue and they will always see each other
Jack Delano, Blue Island, Illinois… (1943)
I know I’m only something to fall back on
Remember when you were the talk of the town
And you didn’t care if I was around
But still you kept me in the back of your head
Just like the teddy bear that you took to bed
I was only something to fall back on…
Determination
Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch and oak,
It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year’s withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.
—Robert Frost, The Onset
Can We Still Be Friends? (Washington Square)
Emma Justine Farnsworth, “Sea Bright, Dade & Jean” (between 1886 and 1912)
“Do you hate me?”
“Oh no,” said Catherine.
Something in her tone discouraged him, but in a moment he recovered himself. “Have you still some kindness for me, then?”
“I don’t know why you have come here to ask me such things!” Catherine exclaimed.
“Because for many years it has been the desire of my life that we should be friends again.”
–Henry James, Washington Square
If you see her give her my critique
God help me, I’m in love with a thinker
Sometimes she tries to hide it from me
But when she starts talking over my head
It makes me dizzy
I’m just a cipher in her master plan
That’s what I get for working out of my league
And though she says that I have nothing to fear
I wonder what will be left when she’s finished with me…
Utopia, Love With A Thinker
John Sapiro 