"Like John Lennon, I threw words into a pot just to get the rhythm and the rhyme. Then when I sang: ‘She said I had it coming to me and I wanted it that way’ I was riffing. My first wife used to say to me: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ The ‘Devil woman’ or ‘gentle woman’ was my wife. Lyrically? Sexually? Yeah, but that wasn’t intentional. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet has also become Il Paradiso for pullers – the perfect pickup anthem for people of a certain age (or sense of humour). And it’s all a glue to fuse this funny joke song so that it sounds good, and not laughable.
And then I mixed it all with a light tambourine and a broken kick-drum. "And then, keeping the rhythm, we contrived bits I stole from the Who’s Baba O’Riley – the bit that goes ‘Out here in the fields,’ the Teenage Wasteland piece. And then in the middle this hypnotic cowbell comes in, which is stolen from Free’s All Right Now. It’s four on the floor – a dance beat with a galloping triplet snare. It’s got that galloping-horse rhythm, a trick that makes you move. I was thrilled!”īack in 1974, did Randy realise he’d stumbled upon rock’s elusive elixir? “As soon as we started doing it live. Then I sang her this song 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. When she got to me I said: ‘I’m in Bachman-Turner Overdrive.’ No response. It was all, ‘Oh, I’m in Pink Floyd…’ this, and ‘I’m Gus Dudgeon… Elton John…’ that. I’d been on a plane after a MIDEM event, and the stewardess was asking what band everyone was from. And thanks to Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse for using it for their Smashie and Nicey skit over four years. And I get wonderful royalties because it’s used to sound-bed the Formula 1 on European TV. A group from Manchester called Bus Stop even did a rap on it. It became a million seller, a monster song that’s been cut the oddest ways. What started out as a prank on a brother has made Randy a wealthy man. So as to get one guitar sound combining electric and acoustic.” That’s a Stratocaster with a Martin mixed underneath. “The first seconds just brighten your day.
Predating the imminent implosion that was new wave, in New York first and London second, it was a fun – rather than angry – release valve. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet is a watershed moment in rocktastic history, signalling the last gasp of rock’s sensibly tasteful period. Stomping over the airwaves in the late summer of 1974. Particularly because as soon it became a hit my brother stopped stammering.” “I thought it was embarrassing, but it went to No.1 in the States and 2.
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