Todd Rundgren — Time Heals

JUL 01 1981 · 12:00

Todd Rundgren — Time Heals (1981) Director: Todd Rundgren Era: Early MTV / New Wave Remaster Era (1981 original; 2015 Rhino remaster) - One of the first 8 music videos ever broadcast on MTV at launch (August 1, 1981), now preserved via Rhino/Warner 2015 digital remaster campaign Exceptionally high. This is among the most historically significant music videos in MTV's canon — the 8th video ever aired on the network on its launch day, and the first to use computer graphic compositing with live action. Its 2015 Rhino remaster makes it both a primary historical artifact and a contemporary digital preservation object. The quantitative profile (extreme darkness, near-zero motion, single-shot structure, warm analog tone) offers a measurable fingerprint of early 1981 video art aesthetics, distinct from all subsequent MTV production norms. Essential acquisition for any archive of music video history. Context: Released as a single from the album Healing (Bearsville Records, January 28, 1981), 'Time Heals' was born from intensely personal trauma: Rundgren composed it following a violent home invasion in August 1980 and the disturbing discovery that Mark David Chapman had reportedly traveled to Woodstock, NY — Rundgren's hometown — and was reportedly fixated on him before redirecting his obsession to John Lennon. The song's lyrical mantra of patience and healing resonated with the broader early-80s new wave emotional palette. Its video's pioneering use of computer graphic compositing placed Rundgren — through his Utopia Video Studios infrastructure — at the absolute technological frontier of the nascent music video art form. The 2015 Rhino remaster digitally preserved this artifact for streaming-era audiences, cementing its status as one of the foundational texts of MTV and music video history. Director notes: Rundgren self-directed the 'Time Heals' music video in 1981, making it the eighth video ever broadcast on MTV on its launch day, August 1, 1981. It is documented as the first music video to combine live-action performance with state-of-the-art computer graphic compositing. The video features Rundgren performing in various outfits against a backdrop of famous surrealist paintings, a concept enabled by his ownership and operation of Utopia Video Studios (opened 1979), a cutting-edge video production facility. Rundgren invested significantly in the production — described as 'very expensive' for its era — at a time when high-budget music videos had almost nowhere to air in the United States, predating MTV's existence. The 2015 remaster was released by Rhino Entertainment, a Warner Music Group company, as part of the Complete Bearsville Album Collection digital reissue campaign. The remastered audio/video version carries the Rhino/Bearsville catalog designation and was made available on streaming and digital platforms in 2015–2016.