Sensational '70's Tune for Thursday, March 5th, '09

"I Saw the Light" is the opening track from Todd Rundgren's 1972 Something/Anything? double album which was one of the first artist-written, -produced and -performed albums. The song is a pastiche of 1960s pop songs and an homage to singer-songwriter Carole King. In addition to writing and producing the song, Rundgren played every instrument and sang all the vocals on three of the four sides of the double album, while a backing band accompanied him on the fourth.

Rundgren states in the liner notes of Something/Anything? that he intended the song to be the hit of the album, and copied the Motown tradition of putting the hits at the beginning of albums. Rundgren's version peakd at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #36 on the UK Singles Chart. However, in the US at least, Something/Anything? actually contained a bigger hit than "I Saw The Light", as the album's third single "Hello It's Me" climbed to #5.

A cover version of "I Saw The Light" was released in 1998 by country music singer Hal Ketchum from his album I Saw the Light. It reached #36 on the US country charts, and #50 on the Canadian country charts.

A live version of "I Saw The Light" by the Rundgren-fronted The New Cars appears on their 2006 album It's Alive!

The song was featured in the TV series Six Feet Under in the "Death Works Overtime" episode and in the pilot of That '70s Show. The song was also featured in the movie Kingpin.

The song was also covered on Terry Hall's (ex Specials) album Laugh and was released as a single in August 1997