Love of the Common Man - Live

This song has a simple but profound message: everyone needs the love of the common man. It's more a message of understanding than a working-man anthem. If you open your eyes to those around you and expand your social circles, good things will come. Rundgren has always distanced himself from his celebrity, which has kept him in contact with the proletariat. It's something his fans have always appreciated, as he sees himself on their level.

On Rundgren's Faithful album, side one contains covers of songs that were popular when he started making music in the '60s: "Good Vibrations" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" among them. The second side is all original songs inspired musically by this time, including "Love Of The Common Man." "That song just came to me," Rundgren told Songfacts. "I'd been doing a lot of prog rock and concept records with Utopia, and even my own records weren't very singles-oriented. And since I was doing a record that essentially attributed songs that would have been on the radio, i.e. songs that were singles, I wanted to write a series of songs that were more or less single form or that could have been on the radio. My first real attempt at that was 'Love Of The Common Man.' Trying to do something that was not too complicated but still had all the earmarks of my style of songwriting." Utopia is the band Rundgren formed in 1974 that was often even more experimental than his solo efforts.

This was never released as a single, but it's one of the songs Rundgren plays at nearly every concert, enjoying the same setlist standing as his hits "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw The Light"