"Hello It's Me" by Todd Rundgren (1972)

Todd Rundgren Creator Series

Welcome back to the third day of posts on one of our favorite musical innovators, the marvelous Todd Rundgren.

Yesterday we covered his song “We Gotta Get You a Woman,” which you can find here.

We’ve also listened to one of the singles from the debut album of The Nazz, “Open My Eyes,” at the end of my first post on Todd Rundgren as a Creator, available here.

Today we listen to both versions of Todd’s biggest popular hit, “Hello It’s Me” — the solo and Nazz versions — as well as watch his appearance on The Midnight Special.

Song of the day

Included in his Something/Anything? album in 1972, Todd’s solo version of “Hello It’s Me” went all the way to #5 on the Hot 100, #2 in the Cash Box Top 100, and #17 on the Adult Contemporary chart as a single release in summer 1973, and helped take the album gold in 1974.

I was 17 when it came out and was enamored with the grown-up lyrics (“spend the night if you think I should”) paired with the heartfelt almost plaintive melody, the horns making me imagine being involved in an illicit and passionate affair with an older guy my parents would freak out about. The perfect song for a teenage girl with raging hormones and her only refuge from her always-around parents behind her locked bedroom door.

What are your memories, if any? Take a listen and see if it brings anything back. I love this album version for the false starts Todd left in at the beginning:

Compare that midtempo version with the slow version on the debut album of The Nazz (below), written by Todd in 1967 and released on their self-titled album in summer 1968. The British influences seem clear in the album cover and the inflections of the words.

It also becomes more apparent that this is actually a break-up song. Todd was working through the hurt from senior year in high school when Linda, the girl he thought was ‘his,’ didn’t raise a protest when her dad turned the garden hose on the long-haired Todd and then prohibited her from seeing him. He persisted in his crush and “even bought her a really hideous plaid pants suit for Christmas and hand delivered it to her house,” being invited in by her sister, who finally helped him see that it wasn’t going to work out. Young love gone wrong. Many if not most of us have been there, done that. (Well, maybe not the hideous plaid pants suit part.)

What’s striking about the Nazz version, in my opinion, is that we can already see Todd’s extraordinary songwriting instincts at that relatively young age. See what you think:

I also want to highlight his extraordinary musical talent as a self-taught composer and performer on piano. Todd never had piano lessons, just fooling around on his grandmother’s piano in the attic as a kid, and later during his short Nazz tenure deciding to use the piano as a “compositional tool” when he became enamored with the music of Laura Nyro. And yet look at this performance on The Midnight Special where they pan in on his piano handiwork:

One last note that Todd did not make his record label happy with the costume and makeup he wore on that show. No doubt Todd was emulating David Bowie, Marc Bolan, or some other glam rocker, ever on top of the trends from across the pond. I’d like to know the story behind that elaborate costume.

Song credits

The solo version:

• Todd Rundgren – lead vocals, piano

• Mark Klingman – organ

• Robbie Kogale – guitar

• Stu Woods – bass

• John Siomos – drums

• Randy Brecker – trumpet

• Michael Brecker – tenor sax

• Barry Rogers – trombone

• Hope Ruff, Richard Corey, Vicki Robinson, Dennis Cooley, Cecilia Norfleet – backing vocals

The Nazz version:

• Todd Rundgren – electric guitar, backing vocals, string arrangements, mixing

• Robert "Stewkey" Antoni – lead vocals, organ, electric and acoustic pianos

• Carson Van Osten – bass guitar, backing vocals

• Thom Mooney – drums, percussion

Technical

• Michael Friedman – producer, photography

• Chris Huston – associate producer

• Bill Inglot – remastering, digital remastering

• Ken Perry – remastering, digital remastering

• Joel Brodsky – photography

• Jon Landau – liner notes