•
Rating:
What has always been defined as a medley is nothing more than a track composed of multiple songs, which are "stitched" one to another, so that the listener, while perceiving the change in music, the end of a song, does not feel that instant void that marks the "break" between one song and the next. Widely used in the past, especially in live performances, it is often adopted as a system to mainly bring back old hit songs quickly, giving them a quick but brief outing, like an Eskimo with an old and faithful sled dog, or a retiree on Sunday with his vintage roadster... Predominantly, therefore, made up of patchworks of already published songs, medleys are almost never made up of complete songs: they are more about snippets, choruses, specials, 'squares' of songs...
Many are the records from the sixties and seventies that, although not featuring medleys, hardly had any breaks between tracks, and indeed, any real division would have compromised the beauty of the work... Yet, if you read the tracklists of those albums, the song titles were not next to each other separated by a slash, but rather regularly one below the other, aligned and covered, in chronological order... Yet there were medleys there too... In prog-rock albums, in the famous suites, composed of various chapters I, II, III and so on, there was almost never a break between chapter and chapter, paragraph and paragraph, subparagraph and subparagraph... And in psychedelic music? How many parts of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" are attached to each other? And in the early Queen records? How many and which are the 'unions' between one track and another, in the name of a chic and imaginative continuity of intent and suggestion?
Obviously, though, there was a man who, in the seventies, took all these rules, and... No, he didn't destroy them, as the rather awkward construction of my sentence implied, but he fortified them by making them his own... Yet, he extremeized them, bringing them to a point of no return and incomprehension, creating a confusing and wonderful mess that was impossible to reorder and clean. And he, of course, is Todd Rundgren, who, after the crazy, incomprehensible and misunderstood but beautiful (perhaps because incomprehensible and misunderstood) "Something/Anything?", restarts under the banner of chaos, his least common denominator, in this "A Wizard, A True Star", naturally from the following year, but was there really a need to say it?
Here there's a medley titled "When The Shit Hits The Fan/Sunset Blvd" which isn't a medley, but a single song, a bright and finally simple, and I emphasize simple, pop rock in Who style. Then there's a mega-medley of already published songs that aren't his, American songbook classics, the doo-wop (smoothed by Todd) "I'm So Proud" and "Ooh Baby Baby", to which "La La Means I Love You" is added, a hit also sung by his muse-fetish Laura Nyro, a track made even more effective by his splendid falsetto, and the southern blues without bass, guitars, or brass "Cool Jerk", only crazed screams, piano, and snare. And then there's "Just Another Onionhead/ Da Da Dali" (just another onion head?), where his pianistic pop soul is accompanied by a circus march with a barrel organ and a monkey doing somersaults. Obviously, the track, having become "Da Da Dali", goes mad, only to then return to the old themes.
And more than anything, there's a record whose first six tracks have no breaks from one to the next: the first is an intro, a kind of anthem and a track that will be reprised (with a different but similar title) later on; the second is an excerpt from the Peter Pan musical and is played as if Neverland were on the Moon (but how does Todd play the piano so well with those astronaut gloves?); the third is an instrumental and plasticky bouncing toy on his usual splendid piano, from which one can already infer his enormous production potential; the fourth, a jarring rock with no connection between the rhythm of the singing and that of the music; the fifth, a mad rock blues all bass guitar, with shrill falsetto screams like those of the third-grade substitute teacher who ripped my stickers, and analog ducklings that you squeeze and they go 'quack-quack'. Obviously, to finish beautifully, the "fake non-medley" opens with an incomprehensible series of animal-like screams (they sound like macaques) titled "Dogfight Giggle" (and what do dogs have to do with macaques?). Good music, but what's there to understand?
I've only examined the medleys and I'm already running out of clarity... And thinking about how many styles, influences, "smudges," digressions, Todd's "escapades," within a single song, first toward one style, then toward another, leads one to conclude that all his songs are medleys... So it is for "Zen Archer", which starts like a falsetto waltz, has a campfire Californian sing-along chorus, progresses worthy of the most famous Supertramp songs, and enjoys excellent moments dedicated to layered vocalizations where the atmosphere becomes subdued and the air rarefied... Or for the final "Just One Victory", which starts as a piece of gospel, shifts to his pop, and becomes a ballad...
The multiplicity of styles, the non-homogeneity, re-emerge in "Hungry For Love", rhythm and charleston, where Laura Nyro has transformed into Liza Minnelli, in the instrumental (and almost devoid of ideas) "Flamingo", or even in "La Feel Internacionale", similar but different version of the intro, akin to the prologue of a rock musical (how is it that someone like Todd didn't write even one?), where the little wizard actually does nothing but anticipate the debut album - naturally from the year after - of his second band, Utopia.
Luckily, there's something more linear, like in the old-fashioned soul pop of "You Don't Have To Camp Around", only a minute long, or like the pleasant, 'tested,' perhaps not very inspiring but valid "Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel" (and you can imagine me!), in the piano and vocals of "I Don't Want To Tie You Down" and in the engaging power pop in Who style, all guitars and choruses, of "Is It My Name?". An honorable mention for the excellent "Does Anybody Love You?". It's when he acts like the kid with long hair but with the air of a good boy, 'in love' with the girl who gets good grades in school, that Todd seems nicest to me, but perhaps it is the simplicity of those melodies that makes me favor him...
This record is not any less crazy than "Something/Anything?" (a title with the same perfect form as a medley title, even with the slash in the middle), but it's simply not as good. A little less good. However, by now, Todd Rundgren is a wizard, a true star (he even says so himself on the record, and who knows if the record label imposed this title on him), and so, like every artist recognized for their brilliance, he is almost so free to express himself that he has become a prisoner of his too much freedom, wandering between one shore and the other of his sea of notes, at the mercy of the current, every possible current. Luckily, from the following year on, the "squaring" of a band, the value of a "crew" will at least force him to maintain a unique compositional style, or reduce the field to fewer genres, to stay on course...
Sometimes, after all, having a single direction doesn't necessarily imply predictability, stagnation, tiredness, or resting on laurels... Sometimes a direction needs to be taken, period... And then the solo activity won't decrease much... And there he could still have fun... Who was it that said there's no favorable wind for those who don't know where they are going? Whoever it was, they weren't entirely wrong.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Never Never Land (01:35)
I know a place where dreams are born
And time is never planned
It's not on any chart
You must find it in your heart
Never Never Land
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
You'll have a treasure if you stay there
More precious far than gold
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
Just think of pleasant things
And your heart will fly on wings, forever in
Never Never Land
04 You Need Your Head (01:02)
You don't need your feet
'cause you know you got wheels
You don't need your hands
'cause you know how it feels
You don't need your eyes
'cause you know how she looks
You don't need your tongue
'cause you know how she cooks
But you need your head
You don't need your belly
'cause there's nothing to eat
You don't need your heart
'cause it just can't be beat
You don't need your mouth
'cause you talk too much
You don't need your crotch,
Ah you know it's only a crutch
But you need your head
05 Rock and Roll Pussy (01:08)
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
Get up, get up, get up and see
Revolution on the tv
Will you, will you, get your nails dirty
Or are you only just a rock and roll pussy
06 Dogfight Giggle (01:06)
instrumental (arf, growl, sniff, snuk, woof, bark, tee hee, etc..)
/%1:Don't you think of anything but sex/%?
07 You Don't Have to Camp Around (01:03)
Daddy don't like it but mommy still wonders, sweet boy
But you're allowed to try it and I point no fingers
Sweet boy, but I'm still wonderin' what it means, boy
You hold your wrist so limply
You don't have to camp around
Save all your money, go confess on sunday, sweet boy
And you get your copy of "honey,"
Back on the street by monday
Sweet boy, but tell me where does that leave me, boy
Save the satin undies, don't pluck out your eyebrows
Stow the mincey lisping, you don't have to camp around
09 Zen Archer (05:36)
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
Rivers of blood,
oceans of tears,
life without death,
and death without reason
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
A man in parts forgotten
With an outlook that is rotten
And an attitude to match it
Finds relief inside a hatchet
And he halved someone in Boulder
Justifiability is in the hands of the beholder
And you just don't know what people will do next
Mountains of pain,
valleys of love,
death without life,
and life without meaning
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
19 Just One Victory (04:59)
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
You may think that I'm a fool, but I know the answer
Words become a tool, anyone can use them
Take the golden rule, as the best example
Eyes that have seen will know what I mean
The time has come to take the bull by the horns
We've been so downhearted, we've been so forlorn
We get weak and we want to give in
But we still need each other if we want to win
Hold that line, baby hold that line
Get up boys and hit 'em one more time
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
Bright as the day, to show us the way
Somehow, someday,
We need just one victory and we're on our way
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
You will hear the call if you only listen
Underneath it all we are here together shining still
Loading comments slowly
