Todd Rundgren & Rivers Cuomo
Down With The Ship
Good Morning!
It’s a bleak January day as I write this, so I thought we’d go with something fun ahead of the weekend. Today we’re listening to “Down With the Ship” by Todd Rundgren and Rivers Cuomo
When I first heard about this song, I laughed. It just seemed so… I dunno. There’s a fine line between high-concept and novelty songs. And there’s already enough rock & roll weirdness in the world.
The press blurb didn’t do it any favors:
Music hipsters of the world UNITE and celebrate what is sure to be one of this year’s most talked about musical collaborations. Multi-hyphenate Todd Rundgren, famously heralded by Rolling Stone as Rock’s Renaissance Man, meets up with the equally iconoclastic Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo on “Down With The Ship,” a new song that is being released today on all digital platforms. The duo share writing duties as well as trading vocal roles on the track, which draws inspiration from reggae and African rhythms not unlike Rundgren’s evergreen 1983 hit “Bang The Drum All Day.” Lyrically, however, the song cuts with a much sharper edge, as Rundgren puts it, “It’s just a little parable about what happens when you align yourself with a treacherous leader.”
Yeah.
But then I listened to it. And listened again. And over the course of the next few days, it popped in & out of my head several times. I can’t decide if it sounds like something you’d hear at Disney or one of those sea shanties that tore through TikTok not too long ago.
Maybe both.
Rundgren’s concept for the Space Force record was simple: find artists with work in progress and finish them as collaborations. The roster of artists here is impressive, with everyone from The Roots to Sparks (whose work he’s produced previously) to Neil Finn making appearances.
As for Weezer, Rungren has previously covered the band’s hit “Hash Pipe.”
Say what you will about either of them—and we can definitely talk about the faux accent—this track is catchy.
Maybe that makes me a “music hipster.” I’ve been called worse.
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More:
Upping the ante for Space Force, Rundgren approached a variety of artist, some he’d worked with previously and others he’d hoped to work with, and asked them to contribute a piece of unfinished music or recording that they’d laid aside for one reason or another, offering to complete it and bring the duet to completion. The result is stylistically diverse, but with Todd, who described his role as “curator and producer” as well as performer, the album’s 12 tracks hang together fairly well, often pointing to different periods and styles in Rundgren’s long and varied musical explorations.
Read more about Space Force here.
Listen:
“Down With The Ship” by Todd Rundgren & Rivers Cuomo| Space Force, 2022
Click the record to listen on your platform of choice.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this track!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
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Todd is the man and I’ll usually give new Weezer a spin at least once… except for the Seasons EPs haven’t listened to any of em!
What a fun song! Attempting to channel The Specials and pulling it off! I like it better than all 75 songs Weezer put out in 2022. Look out below!