The Nazz, Todd Rungren’s first band, was formed in Philadelphia in 1967. Their self titled first album was released in 1968 and Open My Eyes was released as the first single from the album. Neither the album nor the single achieved significant sales but a Boston DJ liked the B-side of the single, Hello It’s Me, and put it on his stations playlist. Hello It’s Me got picked up by other stations and the Open My Eyes/Hello It’s Me single ended up reaching #66 on the singles chart. Let’s listen….
While the Nazz version of Hello It’s Me achieved moderate success Todd was not satisfied. It was the first song he had written and he knew it could be a really big hit.
Move forward four years to 1972. Todd is in the middle of recording his amazing double album Something/Anything? and he decides to resurrect a reworked Hello It’s Me. Let’s listen to the reworked song…..
Todd decided to give Hello It’s Me a second chance as a single in 1973. This time the song sprinted up the charts to #5 and to this day it is Todd’s only hit single!
While we are on the subject of second chances, let’s briefly revisit Sunday’s post about Aerosmith’s first album. As you will recall, Aerosmith thought they had a hit single in Dream On but in 1973 it was a bust on the singles chart. Move forward three years to 1976: Aerosmith is now a huge band, has put out several hit albums, and they have still not given up on Dream On being a hit. An edited version of the song is released and this time it steadily climbs the singles chart topping out at #6. Let’s listen……
I don’t want to get philosophical on you but I think there is an important life lesson in this post…..don’t ever give up on your dreams.
As always, let me know what you think.
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 