Singer of Baby You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
Story Backside The Vocal: Yous Ain't Seen Zilch However past Bachman Turner Overdrive
The rock gods were on Randy
Meanwhile, information technology's 1973 and Randy's kicking his heels.
"I'm looking for something, and and so You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet comes along past accident," he recalls. "I was rehearsing and producing BTO's third album. We needed an FM Top 40 hit, something light with a heavy bit in it. At that time, I was inspired by Traffic's Dave Mason and his song Only You Know And I Know, which had a dang-a-lang rhythm, and the Doobie Brothers' Listen To The Music. So I copped those jangling rhythms, changed the chords and then added some power chords of my ain. I had a work in progress, in ii parts: a great rhythm and a heavy riff."
Having written all the Guess Who's improve lyrics with fellow Canadian Burton Cummings, Randy was open to the muse. She arrived via a familiar, if off-beat route.
"Way back when, my blood brother Garry, i of four Bachman boys, had a voice communication impediment; he stuttered and stammered. For the ultimate tease I wrote a song like he spoke. So I called him upward and scared him by telling him it would be on the album.
"The words just flowed out without thought: 'I met a Devil woman, and she took my centre away.' That sounded good. Then for the chorus I copied the fashion he'd say: 'You ain't seen n-n-nothing yet,' and also the way he stumbled on 'f-f-forget', and the mode he said 'b-b-b baby'. I liked information technology every bit an idea but I was never going to finish it off."
Randy would have shelved the song altogether had not Mercury's artist liaison man, Charley Fach, intervened.
"He loved the album that became Not Fragile, only he couldn't hear an FM radio single. He said: 'It's slap-up, just we demand a hit.' I'd just done a 90-day tour, so I told him: 'Take it or leave information technology. Merely I do accept this existent bad work track with an awful Van Morrison impression.' The engineer played it to him, and inside 1. seconds he said: 'Put that on the album at present.' A few weeks later he calls me and says the record is huge.
"I thought information technology was embarrassing, just it went to No.i in the states and two. other countries. I was dumbfounded. Especially because as soon information technology became a hit my brother stopped stammering."
Stomping over the airwaves in the tardily summer of 1974. You Ain't Seen Aught Yet is a watershed moment in rocktastic history, signalling the last gasp of rock'southward sensibly tasteful catamenia. Predating the imminent implosion that was new moving ridge, in New York first and London second, it was a fun – rather than angry – release valve. Randy concurs.
"The first seconds just brighten your day. Heh heh. It'south the Fender jangling that does that. That's a Stratocaster with a Martin mixed underneath. So as to get one guitar sound combining electrical and acoustic."
What started out equally a prank on a blood brother has made Randy a wealthy man.
"Definitely. It became a million seller, a monster song that's been cutting the oddest ways. A grouping from Manchester chosen Double-decker Cease fifty-fifty did a rap on it. And I get wonderful royalties because it's used to audio-bed the Formula 1 on European Television set. And thanks to Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse for using it for their Smashie and Nicey skit over 4 years.
"I come to London regularly to write. I'd been on a plane after a MIDEM [music industry] upshot, and the stewardess was request what band everyone was from. It was all, 'Oh, I'grand in Pink Floyd…' this, and 'I'm Gus Dudgeon… Elton John…' that. When she got to me I said: 'I'k in Bachman-Turner Overdrive.' No response. 'The Guess Who?' Nah. Then I sang her this vocal and she went: 'Whaaaat?!' She goes and tells the pilot and co-pilot and they start doing a Smashie and Nicey skit and tell everyone: 'Randy Bachman is in seat C3.' And they all applaud. I was thrilled!"
Dorsum in 1974, did Randy realise he'd stumbled upon rock's elusive elixir? "As soon as we started doing it live. Once information technology starts, it takes over. It's got that galloping-horse rhythm, a play tricks that makes y'all movement. It's 4 on the flooring – a dance beat with a galloping triplet snare. So in the middle this hypnotic cowbell comes in, which is stolen from Free's All Right Now. And and then, keeping the rhythm, we contrived bits I stole from the Who's Baba O'Riley – the bit that goes 'Out hither in the fields,' the Teenage Wasteland piece. And then I mixed it all with a light tambourine and a broken kicking-pulsate. And it'southward all a glue to fuse this funny joke song so that information technology sounds good, and not laughable.
You Ain't Seen Zip Yet has as well become Il Paradiso for pullers – the perfect pickup canticle for people of a certain age (or humour). "It is. A gift from the gods. Lyrically? Sexually? Yep, but that wasn't intentional. I sang the storyline off-the-cuff. My get-go wife used to say to me: 'You ain't seen zip yet.' The 'Devil woman' or 'gentle adult female' was my married woman. And then when I sang: 'She said I had it coming to me and I wanted it that mode' I was riffing. Like John Lennon, I threw words into a pot just to get the rhythm and the rhyme. I'thou aware of the connotations. I've been in gas stations in America, in the maddest parts outta nowhere, and seen women's panties and brassières for auction outside – even some men's underwear – with 'You own't seen zero yet' written on the crotch. And there'south me thinking: 'I own this phrase!'"
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More recently, Randy was delighted to hear that his big hit record had spawned a 'chavism': the acronym YASNY.
"I was on a plane and the guy next to me was calling his girlfriend, and he kept on maxim: 'YASNY.' I asked him what that meant and he goes: 'You own't seen zippo yet, man. Like that song.'
"So I use that phrase myself now. Every time a bank check comes in. It could be from Finland or Bavaria or some hockey commercial, or a machine advertizing, or F1 in England… Neat!"
Source: https://www.loudersound.com/features/story-behind-the-song-you-aint-seen-nothing-yet-by-bachman-turner-overdrive
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