In 1985, I was aware of who Todd Rundgren was, for he was a member of Utopia and Nazz, both of which had its share of airplay on MTV, along with the small handful of his own stuff that was played. Radio in Honolulu may have played its share of Rundgren’s solo work but between December 24, 1981 and June 10, 1984, much of my listening came through MTV.
However, it was one album that made me want to hear more Rundgren, and it was much more than because he is “Todd Rundgren.” A Cappella (Reprise) was an album that seemed unusual upon release but considering everything that has come along since then, this album essentially helped pave the way for a lot of great music in the last 30 years. Up until September 10, 1985, producers using sample-based technology did it in an intricate and delicate manner, for one could only sample less than two seconds at a time, and it had to be “played” live. What made A Cappella work was the fact it was promoted as an album where every sound came from his mouth. The title suggest that he was a singer, and he is. He not only did the lead vocals, but all of the harmonies. Not only that, but he vocalized bass lines and filtered his voice tracks so it would sound like keyboards. To make it more interesting, he also was a human beat box by creating snares, bass drums, and hi-hats. Early reviews suggested Rundgren only did the vocals, but he did every sound heard, which seemed like an impossibility, especially in rock circles. It may have been the norm in dance and pop circles, and Frank Zappa’s use of Fairlight’s and Synclavier’s wasn’t understood, partly because no one knew what he was doing with 25K dollar keyboards. What Rundgren did was use an E-mu emulator along with multi-track recording and did something that only a select few knew about. The word “sampling” wasn’t even in use yet but that is what Rundgren was doing in part for this album, sampling himself.
As someone who worshiped the Art Of Noise, A Cappella was mind-blowing because at the time, while I partly understood what he was doing, I didn’t understand *how* he did it in full. I understood the multi-track dubbing techniques, but I used to say “I hear drums and claps, so this thing is not really all from his voice.” Oddly enough, I’d make my own tapes at the same time, sometimes using my Casio SK-1 and while that was lo-fi compared to an emulator, I’d say “psssst” and “kk” and play that rhythmically, which is when I realized what Rundgren was doing. When you overdub one song, a “kk” can turn into a group of people clapping. I was someone who listed to not only a lot of Art Of Noise in the early and mid-80’s, but Kraftwerk. My love of electronic music was only held back by not being able to afford the toys that would make it possible to play it. However, as someone who had wanted a 4-track cassette recorder but knowing how to do pause-tape mixing, I had a sense of how to do it the poor man’s way.
Around the same time, the production in rap music was also drastically changing, go listen to LL Cool J’s first album, also from 1985. That album became a timepiece as a way to say “you know what you had known about the music before this, now you’re going to hear what it’s going to sound like now.” Go listen to Run-DMC’s King Of Rock, the Krush Groove soundtrack, or even the first UTFO. You may not feel there is a link between these albums and something by Todd Rundgren but there is a connection in terms of recording technology. Everyone was upping their game, some intentionally, others just to be adventurous. Once the adventure was heard and understood, there wasn’t any holding back.
The album only went as high as #128 on Billboard, which means it was a flop compared to his previous albums. Some of the songs have been covered, while “Hodja” became an influence for the theme to the ALF cartoon from 1987. A Cappella was very much a midway point for the decade and while it is often ignored by those who expect to talk about albums by Prince, Madonna, and Bruce Springsteen but this album is easily one of the best albums of not only 1985, but of the entire decade.
“…cause we’ve all loved something and lost it
and it’s burning my heart
I can’t open my mouth and just let it out”
When the album started, it was uncertain what the album would sound like. What sounded like a keyboard was his voice altered just a bit before you hear a Rundgren vocal quartet, then the “cha cha cha”. All of a sudden, the vocal bass and the vocal drums came through and in a few seconds, a thumping drum beat. This sounded nothing like what I had heard before, and definitely nothing like what I had known Rundgren for with songs like “Hideaway”, “Hammer In My Heart”, and “Time Heals” but looking back, the harmonies are in common. The lyrics are metaphorical, covering on what Orpheus is, a Greek mythological figure who was known for “his ability to charm all living things”. The lyrics touch on ones self-doubt or the other side of happiness, having fears and unsure of what will happen next. In the first verse, Rundgren describes the theme of the album:
“but you have a gift that the rest of us just can’t live without
and it’s something in your voice when you tell us how you feel”
In other words, there’s a sense of confidence he has and he chooses to share it with the talent of singing. Within the song, he shows the song may not only be about him but also of a loved one who he hopes he will find, or hoping she will find the one she longs for:
“Sing, you will one day be together again
though you can not see her
sing
she is somewhere in the world”
Thus it’s the start of a journey, to see what he looks for and perhaps what he will find at its end.
“and the throne, the pulpit, and the politician
Create a thirst for power in the common man
It’s a taste for blood passed off as bravery
or just patriotism hiding bigotry”
What I always loved about the song is the bridge, where there’s an obvious shift before it carries itself to the end.
“If I was blind would you still be my eyes
or hide everything you see
pretending to care about me
When all the time, you’re just wishing I’d fade away
you just can’t bring yourself to say”
One line I could relate to is when he sings “though I’m ashamed to be afraid, I just can’t help myself, can’t help myself” because there have been moments in my life where I hesitated to do things and I’d often question why I’d hold myself back when all I’d have to do is just do it and get it over with.
“Hodja, please show me how to spin now
Hodja, please show me how you do it
all the other boys are laughing at me again now
Hodja, please show me how you do it
whenever I talk they don’t hear a thing
and everyone laughs when I sing
Hodja, please show me how to spin
I want to do that dance ’til I forget where I am
so get up out of your bed one more time
Hodja, make me spin”
The line that confused me for years is the bridge, for I used to think he used to say something about how “nirvana sings”, but that doesn’t quite make sense. The actual line is:
“from every alley in konya
Mevlana sings “turn around, turn around
you’ve got to spin ’til your feet leave the ground”
Mevlana refers to Rumi, a 13th century poet who also was considered a philosopher, mystic, theologian, and Islamic scholar, writing a lot of word that continues to be read, examined, and explored to this day. He once wrote a peace about the universal message of love, and perhaps Rundgren is trying to seek that oneness, by exploring different philosophies and finding that commonality that everyone searches for. Those subtle references to the spiritual throughout the album is almost unknown until you decide to single out what you may not understand, then discover the album is a blueprint for what many of us try to find, that great unknown.
One of the more interesting influences this song has done was when NBC created a cartoon in 1987 for the TV character ALF, and the theme to the cartoon is pretty much pulled from what “Hodja” created.
“I had always believed that you and me
were connected by destiny
but the time never came
it sounds so lame
Is it all just my vanity?
am I the only one to feel the sun
exactly the way I do?
when you sang how you felt I’d tell myself
maybe someday I’ll sing with you”
The theme of the album pops up again, a reason to sing, a reason to open ones mouth as a means to let out what you feel, even though sometimes we hold back due to the fears he lock on to.
“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”
“As jalaludin rumi has prophesied
this day
this day allah
allah will make his presence known to you”
The song is not eccentric in content but musically, it is off center compared to everything else on the album and it’s safe to say it probably got airplay only on college radio stations, if even that. If anything, the placement in the album allowed the listener to truly listen, to attempt to figure out what he was singing about. Back in 1985, it wasn’t like how it is today where one can just do a Google search and find some sense of translation and interpretation, so “Miracle In The Bazaar” just became the weird song on the album, yet it is an essential part of the chain link that gets us from one point of the album to the other. Oddly enough, it leads us into something even freakier.
“For I’m not afraid to bend my back
I’m not afraid of dirt
but how I fear the things I do
for lack of honest work”
The song gets into what is lost throughout life and wondering if ones on hard efforts will be of value to anyone, but also questioning if it matters to them:
“I know I’m not the only one to fall beneath the wheel
such company can not assuage the loneliness I feel
so many are resigned to be society’s debris
but I will be remembered for the life life took from me”
When the album gets to this point of the album, one wonders if there’s any hope for optimism but as the song reaches its conclusion, it leads to what may matter most to some.
In a song that explores personal and social love, perhaps the ending of A Cappella could only end with a song about a search that may be mighty and strong. It is a cover of The Spinners’ “Mighty Love”, which touches on those hopes and dreams, fear of some sense of failure and not discovering what you have been seeking, or some sense of solace. As the song says, that is the way love goes but there can be more if you keep at it:
“Some say that you’re sure to find true love and piece of mind
at the end of the rainbow, there’s no sign in the sky to follow
’cause that’s the way love goes
and so there’s a rhyme that says life will soon be fine
love is just what you make it
keep on loving, you’ll soon discover
a mighty love”
This is the point of the album where Rundgren’s one-man choir hits his gospel moment, where all of him has found the glory he had been looking for and he can’t stop singing, and it feels like it too. He would return to the gospel vibe four years later with the Nearly Human album and “I Love My Life”, this time with a real vocal choir and a band, but with “Mighty Love” it’s great to know it was Rundgren contributing everything from faithful hand claps to a feeling that may feel foreign to anyone who may not understand where it came from. Did it originate for Rundgren at a church in Philadelphia or did it come from his worldly travels and experience? By even questioning it, it hides the fact that a feeling, a good feeling, can be experienced by all, anywhere and regardless of where it’s found, the truth is that the feeling can be found, especially when that feeling is love. That feeling of love is celebrated by the power of the word, even if that world is vocalized in many variations, from singing to bass lines, keyboard blurbs and drum beats. Rundgren spent the whole album being able to open his mouth and letting it out, and he did so in a glorious manner.
A few things of interest. In 1985, Rundgren did an interview with Entertainment Tonight about how he created the album, and this was considered very weird since the majority of the world had no sense of how any of this worked. Computers weren’t just an everyday thing just yet and to be able to record your voice and play it? That was a fairly bizarre process. These days, we like to look at that episode of The Cosby Show where Stevie Wonder sampled the Huxtables and played their voices in the studio. Meanwhile, people like Rundgren explained how it was done here and was widely ignored by most who didn’t think Rundgren should make music like this. Art Of Noise member Jonathan “J.J.” Jeczalik showed how it was done in 1984 when he and the group appeared on the British music show The Tube, then used host Jools Holland to say a few things before his voice was played in a new version of “Beat Box”. When Chic member Nile Rodgers released his solo album B-Movie Matinee, he briefly spoke on how he’d use sounds taken from other movies, including the voice of actor Harrison Ford and it seemed no one could comprehend how he did it. Herbie Hancock was dabbling with it in the early to mid-80’s too, but what was considered freaky turned into influential hits. Rundgren was explaining it in detail but again, maybe it seemed like it was something only musicians are capable of doing. The compact disc was becoming the format of choice in 1985 and no one knew how a CD worked either, so being able to play a voice you just recorded was an outer space thing. Sample-based production would eventually become a major way of creating music for the next 30 years, and it’s safe to say those in the know heard A Cappella and said “if he can do that, maybe I can create something like this too.”
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