TODD RUNDGREN / TR-i – Fascist Christ (1993)

An ominous song. Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Utopia. He is known for his sophisticated and often unorthodox music, his occasionally lavish stage shows, and his later experiments with interactive art. He also produced music videos and was an early adopter and promoter of various computer technologies, such as using the Internet as a means of music distribution in the late 1990s.

The mid-1990s saw Rundgren recording under the pseudonym TR-i (“Todd Rundgren interactive”) for two albums. The first of these, 1993’s No World Order, consisted of hundreds of seconds-long snippets of music, that could be combined in various ways to suit the listener. Initially targeted for the Philips CD-i platform, No World Order featured interactive controls for tempo, mood, and other parameters, along with pre-programmed mixes by Rundgren himself, Bob Clearmountain, Don Was and Jerry Harrison. The disc was also released for PC and Macintosh and in two versions on standard audio CD, the continuous mix disc No World Order and, later, the more song-oriented No World Order Lite. The music itself was quite a departure from Rundgren’s previous work, with a dance/techno feel and much rapping by Rundgren. The follow-up, The Individualist (1995), featured interactive video content, that could be viewed or in one case, played; it was a simple video game along with the music, which was more rock-oriented than No World Order.

Founding fathers and mothers left us a mandate We’ve got to separate the church and the state So get your head straight before it’s too late And you drop it in the plate, you must appreciate

Jesus and money make a man speak in tongues Scream out his lungs, roll in the dung And when the song is sung, he moves up another rung And the deaf and the dumb are the ones who get stung

Here comes the sex police, they’re at your bedroom door Movin’ in next door, searchin’ from floor to floor You know what they’re lookin’ for Someone’s always keepin’ score every time you dip the oar

Love isn’t fun no more Fascist christ, come to the rescue Gimme that old time religion, here it comes Let’s get fundamental about this strange philosophy

In which god and man are enemies In which there is no serenity unless you happen to believe Precisely what they want you to believe, and no diversity Come join the army and learn the noises

That drown out the others’ voices and please the devil Who rejoices when mankind has no choices And power exploits us, and peace avoids us Guess who to the rescue on a holy mission

To uphold the tradition of the Spanish Inquisition And preempt your decision by forcing your confession Now let that be a lesson Who do you think you’re messin’ with? Somebody took our god away