"We Gotta Get You a Woman" by Todd Rundgren (1970)

Todd Rundgren Creator Series

This is the second post about Todd Rundgren, covering his first big pop song as a solo artist.

It’s dedicated to my friend Ellie on her birthday.

Welcome to all new subscribers, and much gratitude to my paid subscribers who enable this work.

We’re deep into Todd Rundgren this week and next. If you didn’t read yesterday’s longer post on Todd in his early years, including The Nazz, check it out here. We’ll be listening to songs he wrote/performed and songs he produced in these daily posts, with two more longer posts to come on Todd as a Creator.

Today I’m also covering the story behind and controversy around this song. If you want to skip straight to hearing it, please scroll to the bottom of the post.

Song of the day

What inspired it

The story behind this song is that Todd was working as a producer for Bearsville Records and decided that he wanted to sign his first band, and at the same time Paul Fishkin had a band named The American Dream that he was trying to get signed.

Paul was a fellow Philly boy who was supposed to get his pharmacy degree and join the family business, but instead got involved in the local music scene and became the manager for some bands, which is how he and Todd knew one another.

Todd ended up signing The American Dream and their self-titled album got released in 1970. But the label doing the distribution, Ampex Records, was not well-staffed so Paul came to Bearsville to promote the single himself, “mostly in vain” according to Todd. Paul sat there day after day calling program directors at radio stations and trying to convince them to play the single, which so impressed everyone that Bearsville head Albert Grossman offered Paul a permanent job.

Since Paul had nowhere to live, Todd invited him to share the back part of his floor-through apartment in New York. As Todd tells it, “Neither one of us was attached so we were a couple of lonely boys in the Big City. We had few social contacts so we spent many an evening cruising around the East Village hoping to make some connection to the opposite sex, never to any avail. Our escapades would become immortalized in song — We Gotta Get You a Woman.”

The controversy around it

As you may know, some of the lyrics became controversial — “Talkin' 'bout things about that special one, They may be stupid, but they sure are fun” — to the point that Todd avoided singing the song in concerts, as did Carole King with her song “Where You Lead” from the Tapestry album, which came out just five months later. One song was viewed as misogynistic, the other as unempowered.

My own view on this general topic is that songs are not advice on life but rather stories told by the ‘character’ singing the song, which is why the same song covered by different artists, or even by one artist at different points in time, can come across as having a completely different tone and message as the artist sings from a unique interpretation and ‘persona.’ Think David Bowie and Cher, who have a different persona in almost every song (and change costumes to reflect it).

At the very least, we could say that the character is the artist at that specific point in time, knowing that if they wrote or sang it even a day later it might be a noticeably different tune. (This is true of writers as well, in my experience. My own word choices can change from moment to moment. And really, who knows where inspiration comes from?)

In the case of Todd’s song, the character is Leroy’s friend who’s concerned about him being empty and down and thinks finding a woman will solve things, and yes, he just might be misogynistic depending on how you interpret the lyrics. In the case of Carole’s song, the character is a woman who has found a man who makes her so happy that she’s willing to follow him to the ends of the earth to make it work. Something plenty of women and men, gay and straight, have done at some point in their lives.

The songs are not telling us to follow the same path. We can’t see songs as holy doctrine on life. Otherwise we should throw out a lot of other hits, including Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and many of the songs of the 80s hair bands that glorify male lust and sexual shenanigans. I happen to love a lot of those songs.

And yes, there are artists and bands who use music as a soapbox from which to preach and proselytize their views, but we’re not required to buy or listen to those songs. We also shouldn’t ban them if we don’t agree with their views. You censor one song, you open the door to all of them being censored in one way or another. It’s a very slippery slope.

But let me know if you think differently in the comments. My view may not be your view. I’m open to hearing why I shouldn’t indulge my inner caveman by listening to Van Halen and Mötley Crüe, or for that matter my inner rebel with Five Finger Death Punch’s “Wash It All Away.”

The song

OK, on to the song, which I’ve loved since age 14. Listening to it now, I think it has a fantastic arrangement and sound effects. Todd is really starting to come into his own as a composer with this song and album. See what you think:

Song credits

Todd Rundgren – songwriting, production, arrangements, all instruments and voices except below

Tony Sales – bass, percussion

Hunt Sales – drums, percussion