![\"Todd](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Todd-Rundgren-American-musician-singer-songwriter-record-producer-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Guus Krol)<\/p>\n
Wed 26 November 2025 2:00, UK <\/p>\n
While it was a moderate radio hit when he first released it in 1982, reaching number 86 in the UK and number 63 in America, Todd Rundgren<\/a>\u2019s sing-along pop nugget \u2018Bang the Drum All Day\u2019 has lived many subsequent lives as a go-to \u201cjock jam\u201d, ie, a song played in sports stadiums to get the crowd revved up.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also been licensed in numerous TV adverts, probably bringing more steady cash into Rundgren\u2019s coffers than all of the new records he\u2019s released over the same time period.<\/p>\n Part of the reason so many baseball, football, and ice hockey teams adopted \u2018Bang the Drum All Day\u2019 as a celebratory needle drop, besides its catchy keyboard line, is its seemingly basic, uncontroversial lyrical sentiment: \u201cI don\u2019t want to work \/ I want to bang on the drum all day.\u201d This made it the sort of flip-side of the coin to another stadium anthem, Bachman-Turner Overdrive\u2019s \u2018Takin\u2019 Care of Business\u2019 from 1973. Rather than celebrating the handling of one\u2019s work, \u2018Bang the Drum\u2019 acknowledged that nobody in the collapsing Rust Belt of Reagan\u2019s America actually enjoyed their nine-to-five.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s monolithic,\u201d Rundgren said of the song in 1983, \u201cbecause while you don\u2019t want to work, you don\u2019t want to play either. It\u2019s about getting completely fixated on one thing; hypnotised, almost. It\u2019s about me, about everybody in general.\u201d<\/p>\n And thus, it became the song the Cincinnati Bengals played when they scored a touchdown, and probably the song that most random Americans would know from the vast Todd Rundgren back catalogue; a similar case to Randy Newman and \u2018I Love LA\u2019.<\/p>\n The only real shame in all of this is that Rundgren, while hardly known as a jock-jam artist to begin with, had already written a far better and more epic sports-adjacent anthem a full decade before \u2018Bang the Drum\u2019. The song, called \u2018Just One Victory\u2019, was the closing track on his 1972 album A Wizard, a True Star<\/a>, of those unique rock records in which it sounds like you\u2019re hearing 48 musicians, but it\u2019s basically just one insane perfectionist playing every instrument and handling the entire production. This was Rundgren at his most ambitious and experimental and polarising, and it\u2019s probably why \u2018Just One Victory\u2019 never became a hit; just a fan favourite among Todd devotees.<\/p>\n To be fair, \u2018Just One Victory\u2019 also doesn\u2019t have quite as much stadium usage flexibility as \u2018Bang the Drum All Day\u2019. While the latter can be played in any inning of a baseball game or any quarter of a basketball game, \u2018Just One Victory\u2019 was born to be a pre-game anthem \u2013 a rousing pep talk to the home team mixed with a plea to the sports gods to bring a just and satisfying result upon the land: \u201cSomehow, someday \/ We need just one victory and we\u2019re on our way \/ We\u2019re prayin\u2019 for it all day and fightin\u2019 for it all night \/ Give us just one victory, it will be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Todd](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Todd-Rundgren-Musician-Artist-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Todd Rundgren in shades. (Credits: Todd Rundgren)<\/p>\n