of the Paul Butterfield blues band, resulting in two other tracks. The final track on side four, "Slut", was recorded earlier at a live session in I.D. Sound Studios, and featured previous collaborators Tony and Hunt Sales, guitarist Rick Vito, and future actor Edward James Olmos on backing vocals. The majority of vocals for the existing studio tracks were also recorded at the Record Plant, with additional recording at Bearsville, where the album was mixed. As in Los Angeles, Lowe helped out with the engineering. "We'd just put up a Neumann U67 and he'd sing right there in the control room using the monitors for the playback." Songs The liner notes describe the first side of the album as "a bouquet of ear-catching melodies", the second as "the cerebral side", the third as "The kid gets heavy", and the fourth is titled "Baby Needs a New Pair of Snakeskin Boots (A Pop Operetta)". Rundgren wrote the sleeve notes, and included a small operetta that described a narrative between the live tracks. "I Saw the Light" was placed at the start of album, as it was felt to be the most likely hit. The song was influenced by Carole King and written in approximately 20 minutes. "Couldn't I Just Tell You" has had a major influence on artists in the power pop music genre, with music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of the All Music Guide calling it one of "the great songs that provided power pop with its foundation". Scott Miller's 2010 book Music: What Happened? calls the song "likely the greatest power pop recording ever made," with lyrics "somehow both desperate and lighthearted at the same time," and a guitar solo having "truly amazing dexterity and inflection." "Hello It's Me" had been recorded by Rundgren's old band, Nazz. Rundgren explained this unique instance of his re-recording a track by one of his former groups: "I had some sentimental attraction to it as it was the first song I had written. ... during an afternoon session, the songs I really wanted to get were 'Dust in the Wind' and 'You Left Me Sore'. The sessions were going well and 'Hello It's Me' was something I had been thinking about updating. It was done as such a dirge originally, I thought that part could be addressed." As with the rest of the live tracks on side four, little preparation was done for