‘We Gotta Find You a Woman’: the Todd Rundgren song that inspired feminist rage
As far as musical innovators go, Todd Rundgren is right up there. His unorthodox style of writing and recording has seen him establish a glittering legacy. It’s partially thanks to him that the likes of artists as wide-ranging as Björk and Daft Punk were able to create their own mind-bending sounds. There’s no surprise, then, that the man who helped us realise that the studio is an instrument has received kudos from many prominent artists, including Ringo Starr and Stevie Nicks.
Given that Rundgren is so uncompromising in his approach to creating individualistic music, he has been no stranger to controversy, as his character permeates everything he does. From decrying the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a “scam” to saying that “John Lennon ain’t no revolutionary… he’s a fucking idiot, man”, there have been a handful of headline-making moments throughout Rundgren’s career. However, some of these were more complex than those others. At one particular juncture, the musician came under fire from a group of feminists for his apparent misogyny in a song that he has always claimed was widely misunderstood.
The piece in question is ‘We Gotta Get You a Woman’ from 1970’s Runt, the eponymous debut by the band Rundgren was fronting. The inspiration for the song’s lyrics is music executive Paul Fishkin, who managed one of Rundgren’s early bands, Woody’s Truck Stop, and worked at Bearsville Records with him. He and Rundgren were good friends and spent much of the summer of 1969 together. Whilst the pair might have had the world at their feet during this heady time, Fishkin was rather unlucky when it came to dating. This is what Rundgren maintains he wrote the off-kilter, piano-driven track about.
The line, “They may be stupid, but they sure are fun,” is what irked some people of the day, particularly when taken in tandem with the chorus line, “We gotta get you a woman”. Causing a stir, a female music director at a Detroit radio station spoke out against the track’s theme, and a college radio station in Connecticut received criticism for airing it.
Rundgren has always maintained that ‘We Gotta Find You a Woman’ was wildly misinterpreted, with the “they may be stupid” line not meaning what many believed. “Just because I used the word ‘stupid,’ they think I was referring to women,” Rundgren told Red Bull Music Academy. “I’m not referring to women, I’m talking about stupid little characteristics that people have.”
Elsewhere, when speaking to Songfacts in 2015, Rundgren was asked why he named the character in the track “Leroy”. It transpired that it was all to do with what rhymed. “I just couldn’t figure out how to make a clever rhyme with the word Paul,” he revealed. “‘Hey, y’all Paul’ – maybe I could’ve done that. But it was just a name I picked out of the air.”
