Song of the Day 10/22: The Guess Who, “Undun”

Randy Bachman wrote a lot of classic rock hits for the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, most of them on a guitar he bought when he was 19 years old with money he made mowing lawns, a 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins model in western orange with black DeArmond pickups. It was stolen in 1976, and Bachman spent years trying to find it.

During the pandemic, someone did. A guy in British Columbia named William Long saw an interview in which Bachman mentioned the purloined instrument. Long’s hobby is photographic analysis — he told a Washington Post interviewer it was like doing real-life jigsaw puzzles — and he spent weeks online trying to find a photo that matched the guitar’s distinctive wood grain. He finally did, on the web site of a Tokyo guitar shop. The Gretsch had been sold a few years earlier to a Japanese musician who records as Takeshi, and YouTube video quickly confirmed for Long that it was the same instrument.

Long contacted Bachman, who contacted Takeshi, and once Japan is allowing foreign visitors, Bachman will trade a near-identical Gretsch for the one he lost 45 years ago.

Bachman considers “Undun” the best song he wrote with the Guess Who. Though it’s about a girl who dropped acid and fell into a coma, Bachman said its inspiration was a line from Bob Dylan’s “Ballad in Plain D,” “she was easily undone,” along with some jazz chords he had learned from a friend. It was initially relegated to the B-side of “Laughing,” but after it started getting radio airplay was re-released as an A-side. It reached No. 22 in the U.S., No. 3 in Canada. Burton Cummings, who already knew how to play the saxophone, learned to play the flute for the song.

The tune has proved popular with jazz artists, particularly those who, like Sophie Milman, work in Canada, where the Guess Who is revered.