Today’s classic song of the day wasn’t released a single, although it could have/should have been. It’s “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” by Todd Rundgren and it is a polished piece of power pop perfection.
“It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” was the second track on side one of disc one of Todd’s 1972 masterpiece, Something/Anything? This song, like the others on the album’s first three sides, was recorded by Mr. Rundgren himself using multi-track technology. He played all the instruments and provided all the lead and backup vocals. He started by laying down the drum track, because “it was the logical place to start” and then layered in the other instruments on top of that. In some cases, he didn’t even have the full song written when he started recording, so he’d leave holes here and there for things to be added later in the process. He worked at I.D. Sound Studios in Los Angeles with engineer James Lowe. (“I was never sure exactly where the song was going until we’d put down about four or five tracks,” Lowe recalled.)
The liner notes to Something/Anything? describe side one as “a bouquet of ear-catching melodies,” and indeed it was. That side led with the hit “I Saw the Light” and included four other ear-pleasing tunes. Side two was “The Cerebral Side,” side three was “The Kid Gets Heavy,” and side four, recorded more-or-less live in a New York studio, was titled “Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Books (A Pop Operetta).” That last side was the one that featured “Hello It’s Me,” a previous classic song of the day.
Musically, “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” used a lot of pedal points, where the bass stayed the same while the chords shifted above that. In the verse, that translated to a E/A to A groove, shifting to E/F# to F#m, to A/D to D, to A/B to Bm. The chorus used a similar technique and almost identical chord pattern. This sort of shifting from a related chord (either a fifth, a second, or a seventh away) to the root chord throughout sets up a continuous pattern of tension and release, sort of like a Carole King tune on steroids. (Todd was strongly influenced by Ms. King when making this album.)
However he did it, “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” is a terrific tune. It may be my favorite Todd tune, and that’s saying something because a lot of his tunes are my favorites. It was particularly effective on the soundtrack for the movie Cold Feet, an indie gem from 1983 (starring Griffin Dunne) that featured a full complement of Todd Rundgren tunes. Probably why I like the movie so much, even if it is almost impossible to find today.
(BTW, while you can’t buy a physical copy of Cold Feet or find it on your favorite streaming service, a very poor copy of the movie is available on YouTube and embedded here for your viewing pleasure. “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” plays under the opening credits and “We Got to Get You a Woman” is under the end credits—what could be better?)
And here’s your daily bonus track of the day, Alison Krauss doing a lovely, lovely version of “It Wouldn’t Have Made Any Difference” from her 1999 album, Forget About It. This is one case where the performer (with her angelic voice) is just perfect for the song, and vice versa. My wife and I had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Krauss perform this one live in concert about a decade ago and it was something.
