“I Saw the Light” (Todd Rundgren)

Today’s classic song of the day is another gem from Todd Rundgren and his Something/Anything? album, “I Saw the Light.” Released as a single in March of 1972, “I Saw the Light” peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, #11 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #12 on Billboard’s Easy Listening chart.

Todd Rundgren wrote the song, played all the instruments, and sang all the vocal harmonies. He says it only took him about 15 minutes to write, because he was hopped up on Ritalin at the time. In his own words:

“The tune was a no-brainer—it was so simple. If you have a formula, you can come up with five of those an hour.”

Many people consider “I Saw the Light” as Todd’s homage to Carole King. He was certainly influenced by Ms. King, but also by another singer/songwriter contemporary, Laura Nyro. On this one, I hear more Nyro than King, most notably in the chord changes—although there’s a fair amount of King-like tension and release going on, especially with the DbMaj7 – Ebm7 chords at the end of each chorus. That’s an unusual way to end the chorus, in any case, striking a tension with the IMaj7 chord and then releasing it to the iim7; the tension comes from holding the Eb (the suspended second of the DbMaj7 chord) in the melody then resolving it down to Db, which is the seventh of the Ebm7 chord. You’d think the song would eventually resolve to the DbMaj7 (the tonic), but it never does; by using that suspended second in the melody, it makes the tonic sound like a dominant and the supertonic sound like the tonic. Very, very harmonically sophisticated.

(By the way, “I Saw the Light” was written in the key of Db—even though some people notate it in the easier-to-play C—which means using all the black keys on the piano.)

Mr. Rundgren intended “I Saw the Light” to be the big hit off the Something/Anything? album. As such, he positioned it as the lead track on side one of the first album of that two-disc set. As he wrote in the album’s liner notes:

“If there’s a single on the album, this is it, so I put it first like at Motown.”

He also described side one as “A bouquet of ear-catching melodies,” which it indeed was.

Even though “I Saw the Light” was the intended big hit tune from Something/Anything?, that honor ultimately went to “Hello It’s Me.” That single peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In any case, here’s today’s daily bonus video of the day, Todd Rungren performing “I Saw the Light” with Daryl Hall on Live from Daryl’s House. You can tell that Mr. Hall really likes this one.