Hello It's Me

This is one of my favourite ever Todd songs. I just have to say that this guy is an incredible artist and his older stuff is really stunning music - Something / Anything particularly is a fantastic album, and features this track. This song is about a complex relationship and someone whom he is very close to and probably loves but for some reason can't be with. Personally this song makes me think of loving someone and them loving you in some way too, but together neither person is completely happy. However he 'never wants to make them change for him', so he in a sense doesn't want them to feel any different. Anyway, it's a beautiful heart-felt, soothing song. As with all of Todd's early work, it gives me a sense of real effort and honesty as a song. He is undoubtedly a very talented and widely influential artist.

This song is sooo good. Words cannot express how good if a song it is. You just have to hear it to see how good it is.

I love this song. It makes me happy. : ) I heard it so many times on the radio and never got the name of it until now.
I'm a huge fan of that instrument they're playing in the background, I thinkk its called a Hammond organ....I'm such a hippie, I just love all this fun floaty melody music. Makes you just wanna spin around in a field of wildflowers....

I agree that this is indeed about a complex relationship and complicated emotions involved, as a result. But I don't agree with the simple interpretation that this is an affair. For one, the song was written in '68 by Rundgren for Nazz. A decade really doesn't die until half-way through the new decade; for instance, sure, we'll be into the '20-teens' next year, but don't expect the 'early naughts' feel to dissipate until 2015, at least. And, simply stated, the sentiments were much stronger in the 20th century. 60's attitudes were well in force into the 70's -- just as the music from the early-to-mid 80's was still strongly 70's influence. This is just where the cultural consciousness was.

Given that preamble, consider some of the mindset going on here -- specifically, the sexual revolution. Free-love. A whole revolutionized style of relating. Changing attitudes. Now, by the 80s, we'd all come out of the (somewhat drug-induced, heh) fog of limitless hedonism -- and suffered the health results. Plus, the religious fundamentalists came barrelling through with paraphernalia waving, stating that such behaviours were against [insert-chosen-deity-here] and that's the explanation for disease and what-have-you. Ridiculous, unproven, sure -- but the end result was undeniable: people were sick, dying, and some sort of control needed to be put back into place.

So, it's not surprising that sanctioned pair-bonding and nuclear families were again en vogue, with the polyamoury of the past becoming too dicey and remaining in the minority. Still, the backlash was there, and the attitudes remain in the cultural subconscious. (That's why you see a lot of it coming back in the alternative lifestyles which embrace them.)

Now, back to Rundgren. Since this was first written in that era, I'm much more inclined to think that this is the sentiment of the tail-end of that paradigm shift. It doesn't have to be an affair, as some have suggested, (and not without merit). Nobody had to be lying. In the case of polyamoury, everyone's aware of everything, there's heavy negotiation, and the understanding that there will be multiple romantic and / or sexual relationships active within the group, or a single pair-bonding. Like swinging, but with some different controls in place.

Listen to the song again with this in mind. You might be surprised just how much it seems to fit. Yes, she (or even he) is likely married, or in an otherwise committed, legally-recognized relationship, and the other is not; quite possibly single. Yes, the relationship presents some issues of unfairness and can be very complicated -- for both, but namely the single individual.

I feel the 'I never want to make you change for me' line to be the real ticket. It's possible that a relationship was tried given the intensity of emotion between the two, and failed on the grounds that the single partner needs to be more than he (or she) ever can be, given the prior obligation and commitment of the otherwise 'taken' partner. It's nobody's fault, and just plain sucks, honestly. So he sums it up rather well, I feel: they'll see each other 'once in awhile', or if they need a reason to smile, and, if attitudes should change, re-introduce a romantic and / or sexual component.

But for whatever reason, either the narrator (Rundgren) or the one to whom he's singing has decided that, due to whatever, a relationship cannot continue for reasons not given. It's probably quite painful. They might still be in love. They may remain friends. As a result, he wants to make sure that (likely the single partner) knows that she 'is free', isn't expected to change, and he still loves her. And, if she decides that she 'just doesn't care' (about the complication) once again, or potentially even finds a partner herself who is open-minded and free-thinking, they could try again.

Complex song. Complicated emotions, but very powerful. Three cheers to Rundgren. The man gets it.

This song takes me back to the early 70's - hanging with my friends in a small midwestern town on Friday night. Before life got complicated!!!

I have a thing for love songs that reflect real emotions not romanticized notions. That's why I like this song. It reflects what people genuinely feel. You meet someone, your with them and you genuinely like them a lot but there are always doubts. In this song he's talking about how they both hold back, he's telling her that she shouldn't feel like she has to change who she is to be with him, because he doesn't want her to do that.

ha i am a total 70s chic!! lol bnut i love this song i sing it all the time

"'Cause I never want to make you change for me.....

pure genius

Maybe he is afraid of emotional closeness/involvement with a woman? I say this coz I sure as hell am and I really identify with this tune and in fact I've said this to more than one woman...

"It's important to me That you know you are free 'Cause I never want to make you change for me"

And I tell myself I say it coz it is "sweet and cool" to let the woman know she is free and that she doesn't have to change, but.... maybe I say it more to protect myself?

Yep, I'm kind of a complicated fella...

Mr. Rundgren is a true modern day Troubadour

Oh I almost forgot, the reason I was searching threads about this song is that way down in the mix so faint it seems only there to be a goof is a---tuba!? In the right channel at the beginning and then again several times later in the mix. It is making these farty kinds of sounds. Real deep farts.

You probably can't hear it on your stereo but here at my studio I listen for little details sometimes and this one has me wondering at the humour of it all. I normally hear trucks going through gear changes in downtown traffic outside symphony hall during a recording...that's the kind of detail I hear (I am in the business) but a tuba?!

I have what they call the "remastered" version of this cut and will listen with great interest to see if the tuba is on perhaps the original vinyl recording or got added by a prankster later. Of course Todd all ways had a wicked sense of humour. I'm betting he put it on there on the original.