Song Of The Day 5/27/2013: Todd Rundgren - "Saving Grace"

Seemed like it was time for a Todd Rundgren song. We've covered Utopia, but not solo Todd. As all of you know from my leaflet campaign, Something/Anything? remains my favorite album of all time. I first heard it over 30 years ago. I don't remember what my favorite album of all time was when I first heard it, so I am not aware of another album ever having been my favorite. There have been many albums released in those 30 years since. I have heard many of them. The only serious challenger to Something/Anything? released during those 30 years has been The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs, which is a similar album in a lot of ways, especially in that it takes an encyclopedic approach to the subject of pop music.

I don't know for sure if that kind of approach was what Todd had in mind when he recorded Something/Anything? -- maybe he was just trying to make a great singer/songwriter album -- but it still feels like a blueprint for every type of music that came after it. It has not dated. Every kind of songwriter in the world can still learn a lot from Something/Anything? and I suspect a lot of them do. Someday I may write about it more extensively. I keep promising to write extensively about a lot of things though.

Picking a song on this album to be SOTD is like throwing a dart at a map of the world, but let's go with "Saving Grace." It's sort of my mindset these days. We'll get ours, guys.