HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST #1 - REO Speedwagon, "Roll with the Changes" (Live, Sept 22, 1978)
The ne plus ultra of power pop.
For many, REO Speedwagon is synonymous with wuss rock. The echoey, mooney-gooney harmonies of “Keep on Loving You,” “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Time for Me To Fly,” and “Take It on the Run” are maybe a notch above Air Supply. (Never mind that they are all terrific songs, and Air Supply has its merits, too.) But nestled in REO’s repertoire isn’t just a hidden gem, there is a Hope Diamond of power pop.
Their fifth most streamed track on Spotify (that’s over 57 million blissful-though-poorly-monetized spins) is “Roll with the Changes,” a recording of such ineffable perfection that it doesn’t just deserve it demands inaugural placement on the HOFFSTACK PLAYLIST.
Here is the studio version, This isn’t actually the composition’s final form, but hit play as we continue.
REO Speedwagon formed in Champaign, Illinois in 1967. They played their last gig just a few weeks ago in Las Vegas, though only two members of the final quintet were from the glory days. (Only one member, Neal Doughty, the keyboardist, was with the band since the very beginning, though he did tap out before most recent tour.)
Lead singer and pianist Kevin Cronin says the piano riff for “Roll with the Changes” just kinda came to him while he was fiddling around in the studio. He was in the process of moving from Chicago to Los Angeles, which he didn’t really want to do, but realized it was a necessity to stay in the band. As he was driving through New Mexico, the groove came back into his head, but this time with lyrics. Since he was in the car, all he had on him was a brown bag “with munchies,” so that’s where he wrote down the words. Rolling with the changes, indeed.
The song, on the idiotically named album You can tune a piano, but you can’t Tuna fish, is deceptively simple. For something with “changes” in the title, it doesn’t change much. It’s relentless in its beat, the bass is repetitive. But if you listen closely, especially with headphones, you’ll find a surprisingly dense mix. In addition to some stray “whoops!” on the vocal you’ll hear several different guitars splashing around, picking up after one another. (I believe it’s all Gary Richrath overdubbing himself.) There’s a nice handoff to a Hammond organ, then a climactic trade back and forth between different distorted guitars. This is a shred-fest, but it’s still a piano-centric rock tune in league with the best of Elton John. And the backing harmonies have that slightly metallic texture, a foreshadowing of the group’s upcoming megahits like “Can’t Fight This Feeling.”
The pieces fit together into an invigorating triumph. This isn’t the blues, this isn’t a country ballad. This is pulse-quickening magic only captured in simple, slightly stupid rock ‘n’ roll. When Cronin comes back at the 2:13 mark to sing “soooooooooooo, if you’re tired of the same old story” and pushes a little on “same” to make it “saAAAAAy-uhhh-uhhh-ame!” he’s not doing it by choice. He has no other option. The car is speeding along so fast and there’s a dip in the road and “woooaaaaaHHHHH” he’s rolling with the changes. Listen for yourself and you’ll know that this is true.
There’s nothing new about “Roll with the Changes.” The chord progression sure sounds a lot like “Love the One You’re With” by Stephen Stills. And also “Paradise City” by Guns N’ Roses. But I don’t think anyone from Buddy Holly to REO’s fellow Illinoisans, the mighty Cheap Trick (Praise Be Unto Them), ever crafted a finer roll-down-the-windows and sing along in the car type of song.
Okay, maybe Tom Petty did with “American Girl,” but I don’t he ever made a TV appearance with that song that comes close to what happened on The Midnight Special in 1978.
I was too young to watch The Midnight Special or Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert in first run, but I am old enough to remember a time when you just didn’t see musical artists doing their thing all the time. Lo! Imagine a world before streaming YouTube on the toilet! If your band wasn’t in MTV heavy rotation, you were out of luck. So a television spot was all you had to actually see who it was that made the songs.
This live performance trades off a little on the distilled perfection of the studio-recorded version. The bass, which has such a terrific rumble on the album, is lost a little in the mix. Obviously, Gary Richrath can only play one guitar at a time. And Kevin Cronin almost sounds a little anxious at first. He’s rushing his singing, and staying up top, unwilling or unable yet to dig in too deep. (Was it nerves or drugs? Who is to say?) Or maybe it’s that he’s in front of a live audience but sitting in profile, playing for a camera. And the camera is way too close!
It gets even closer.
But as this is happening, Gary Richrath (whose name reminds me of Rex Rexroth) is having a grand time, zooming up and down the scales and firing off riffs, more than compensating for the dense blend on the album with just one blazing axe. He’s also windmilling like crazy and at the 1:45 mark Kevin decides “screw it” and let’s loose an “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah!” followed by a slight (but significant!) whoop. He’s hanging on for dear life, but he is no longer afraid.
Gary continues to shred like a man possessed, and interrupts his own flow with a few precise, high speed harmonics (2:01) that would make Jeff Beck blush. All the while (and this is key!) he’s being shot from below at a Dutch angle wearing tight pink shirt that is open down to his navel!
Gary does a little wiggle move at 2:16, shaking his rump to add a “weeeeaaarrr” to the guitar line, then glances down at his instrument with a mix of parental affection and awe. If he could stop everything and stroke it he could.
After the build-up, Gary, all smiles, takes to the microphone to sing backup vocals and that’s when we ascend into another realm. The keyboard player, who looks like he just showed up from the bus station, takes the spotlight for a minute as we gain more momentum with a series of hand claps.
Finally we trade back to the guitar with Gary leaping in the air as if catching an invisible ball from his teammate. Then, a miracle. The camera shoots from behind and we see the audience. And discover the source of all this innovation.
What furnace has fueled Gary Richrath up and down such melodic explorations? Could it be the three smokin’ hot chicks gazing up at him from groin level with a look of adulation and astonishment? I believe that may have been a factor!
The rest of the song becomes a duet of sexual energy between the band and its fans. It’s lucky it ends where it does, before everyone tears each other’s clothes off. If the engine of rock ‘n’ roll lay in the loins, this performance could power a supersonic jet. Behold the visage of one Gary Dean Richrath, who left us in 2015, confident in the knowledge that he was getting laid in about 15 minutes.
Anyway, it’s a really catchy song. And it was very well used in Joss Whedon’s 2011 horror-comedy The Cabin in the Woods, a terrific movie that few people talk about these days.