Todd Rundgren has enjoyed one of the most wildly varied careers in the music business. In addition to being a successful solo artist, he has put together stretches as a leader of various bands. Don’t forget the production work that he has delivered over the years as well.
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Rundgren was in the middle of all that, as well as being a record exec of sorts, when he recorded his first hit single. The song gained him notoriety, although not all of it was positive.
Do-It-All Todd
You’ll hear the word “prodigy” thrown around a lot by folks in the music business, sometimes irrationally. But that description fits Todd Rundgren quite well. Even while in his teens, he was showing rare musical ability at the highest levels in a variety of different areas.
His first band, The Nazz, churned out a pair of albums in the late 60s that helped put him on the map. But he also quickly developed a reputation as a top-notch producer for a slew of established acts.
The Nazz crumbled after a few albums, as Rundgren was pushing in artistic directions that the other band members didn’t necessarily want to go. For a while, it looked like he might end up focusing totally on his production work. But his drive to write songs pushed him back into the studio. And some time spent with a new buddy inspired his first hit single.
Buddies on the Town
Paul Fishkin, like Todd Rundgren, was working for famed talent manager Albert Grossman at Bearsville Studios. The two men were hanging out together, checking out the local bar scene in upstate New York. And, as young guys might do, they were looking for female companionship. But neither were they exactly burning it up in that department.
Their experiences inspired Rundgren to write the song “We Got To Get You A Woman”. Instead of calling his buddy in the song Paul, as was the case in real life, Rundgren decided on the name Leroy. That better suited his rhyming purposes.
Technically, “We Got To Get You A Woman” acted as the lead single of the self-titled debut album from a trio called Runt. But Rundgren played most of the instruments and did all the writing and singing. He just wasn’t sure that he wanted the pressure of being the star of the show. In later reissues, the song would be credited to Rundgren alone.
Todd Rundgren’s “Woman” Problems
“We Got To Get You A Woman” put Todd Rundgren on the pop charts for the first time, reaching No. 25 upon its release in 1970. Unfortunately for the artist, some of the folks who heard it weren’t all that thrilled with it.
The bone of contention was the following lyric: “They may be stupid, but they sure are fun.” Many women who heard the song thought that the words didn’t exactly cast them in a positive light. Rundgren maintained in interviews after the fact that it wasn’t his intent. But he did take the song out of his setlist rotation for quite some time as a reaction to the minor backlash.
That little kerfuffle died down pretty quickly anyway. “We Got To Get You A Woman” now stands as a light-hearted romp that sounds like freewheeling advice from one buddy to another. And it made history by putting the pop genius of Todd Rundgren in the spotlight for the first time ever.
Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns
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