I have to admit, I’m a sucker for a song that does all that it can. Toto’s “Rosanna,” written by David Paich as a sort of Hail Mary to score another radio hit after two records’ worth of misses, is just such a song. It has pretty much everything!
“Rosanna” is also the focus of today’s Season Eight premiere of Strong Songs, and it was a hell of a way to kick off a new year. I try to avoid having too much of a show formula, but I can’t deny that there are certain types of songs—technical, harmonically interesting, highly arranged studio recordings—that lend themselves to the type of analysis I like to do. “Rosanna” very much fits that bill.
Early in the episode, I referenced a 2025 interview David Paich did with the YouTube channel “Guess That Record,” in which he talked about his mindset as he wrote it:
We definitely knew that our career was hanging in the balance at that time. The record company’s like, if you don't guys don't come up with another hit on your next record, we're gonna be in dire straits. So I went in with it thinking we've got to write our best album ever here, that's not only just a commercial success but also has depth to it, and has musicality to it, and and all the good production and everything. You know, lyrics, and melody…
And so the first song I wrote was ‘Rosanna,’ because I thought, ‘if this song doesn't make it,’ I said, ‘I'm gonna give up.’ This has everything I know about songwriting put into one song: it ended up having [multiple vocalists], it had the guitar solo, synth solo, and a great drum intro on it, and I thought it was very diverse and showed off the talents and the musical technique of the players in the band.
A good bandleader knows how to feature the strengths of each player in their band; it was true for Duke Ellington, and it’s true for Toto. Anytime I’ve found myself leading a band, I’ve tried to hew to that mindset, particularly when directing student ensembles. “Rosanna” demonstrates how fully Paich and the rest of Toto understood their individual strengths; how they could apply their “arranger ears,” to use guitarist Steve Lukather’s term, to make a record that would continually delight and surprise the listener. Not content to highlight one or two band members’ strengths, they decided to highlight everyone.
Steve Lukather, Mike Porcaro, Fred White, and Jenny Douglas at Montreaux in 1991
That kitchen sink approach is key to what makes me love the song. “Rosanna” features, among other things:
The horns and shuffle swagger of Boz Skaggs’ “Lido Shuffle,” another hit co-written by Paich just a few years earlier
A drum groove from Jeff Porcaro that was itself a kitchen-sink combination of several other great grooves
Steve Lukather’s mix of clucking Strat rhythm parts and screaming Les Paul leads
Lead vocals split between Lukather’s croon and Bobby Kimball’s soaring tenor
A group-sung, finger-snapping Motown pre-chorus
A chorus vocal ensemble that towers above the arrangement
A mid-song synth explosion worthy of Tommy Mars
A partridge in a pear tree
I don’t mean to suggest that every song needs to take a similarly maximalist approach. In fact, most Toto songs aren’t as dynamic and complex as “Rosanna,” and many of them are still great. But I do love how this song turned out, and think it’s interesting that it was at least somewhat the result of financial pressure from the band’s record label. Art and commerce, baby.
You can learn all about those musicians, their varied parts, and many other aspects of this song, in the season eight premiere. And If you want to hear more about how I made the episode, along with some additional thoughts on the song, I’ll be recording a Patreon-exclusive “Inside The Episode” video for the Strong Songs Patreon later in the month. It’s just $1 for your first month through the end of January, so go sign up!
Like, Subscribe, and Hit That Bell
Speaking of videos, 2026 marks the year that many of my projects are making a concerted push onto YouTube. Triple Click is now posting audio episodes there, along with new video shorts each week. I’m also going to be resurrecting my personal YouTube music channel and posting there more regularly. I’m excited!
I realize this move is in tension with my longstanding skepticism of closed platform monopolies, my wishes for a RSS-like open video distribution model, and the fact that I spend most of my time making capital-A audio that doesn’t need or want to have a video component. It is also true that video is fun and engaging, that visuals can greatly help with online music education, and that YouTube is the most-watched video platform in the world. I want as many people as possible to see my work, so here we go.
I’m looking forward to my 2026 video journey, on YouTube, Instagram, and Patreon. I hope you’ll subscribe and follow along.
Onward
That’ll do it for now. I’ll leave you with two Appa pics, since I neglected to include one last time. The first, an exploration of light and shadow, as the angled winter sunlight cascades across her golden fur:
The second, a more frank portrait:
I hope you’re all looking after one another, and not letting the man keep you down. Whatever they want you to believe, there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.
Take care, and keep listening-
~KH
1/16/2026