Song Lyric Sunday: You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

For today, Jim’s post Missed It By That Much has invited us to share a song we think should have got to #1 but didn’t. Those of you across the pond will probably be thinking I’ve made a mistake with this, but although this song topped the charts in the US, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany and Denmark it was an abject failure here in the UK, where it only got to….#2 – very much a near miss! My choice for today is a song that was released on the album Not Fragile and as a single in September 1974, just as I was about to begin my final year at uni, and was guaranteed to fill the dance floor at every Students’ Union disco throughout that year. This first verse will give you the clue, if you haven’t already spotted it in my title or the image at the top:

I met a devil woman

She took my heart away

She said, I’ve had it comin’ to me

But I wanted it that way

I think that any love is good lovin’

So I took what I could get, mmh

Oooh, oooh she looked at me with big brown eyes

And said…

Yes, I’m playing you one of the greatest hits of all time:

Wikipedia is a little vague on the release date of the single. The album definitely came out in September 1974 but I’m not so sure about the single: it must have taken a little while to get moving, as it didn’t break big in the charts until that November, and achieved its highest position here in December, being held off the top spot by that year’s Christmas #1, a cod rock Elvis-ed up song by the glam pop band Mud, Lonely this Christmas. I’ll leave you to decide which one of them should have been the chart topper: I know what I’d have preferred! The album, by the way, was also #1 in the US and Canada, and got to #12 here in the UK – the only time they made our charts, although Randy Bachman’s previous band, The Guess Who, had a top twenty hit here in 1970 with American Woman.

From Wikipedia: “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet was written by Randy Bachman. In The Rolling Stone Record Guide, writer Dave Marsh called the song “a direct steal from The Who”, but “an imaginative one”. The chords of the chorus riff are very similar to the ones used by the Who in their song Baba O’Riley, and also the stuttering vocal is reminiscent of My Generation. Bachman insists that the song was performed as a joke for his brother, Gary, who had a stutter, with no intention of sounding like My Generation. They only intended to record it once with the stutter and send the only recording to Gary.” But, as record companies do, they pushed Bachman for a song they could release as a single to promote the album, and he was persuaded to choose this record. I for one am very glad that he did, or we would never have been treated to this chorus:

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet

B-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen n-n-nothin’ yet

Here’s something that you never gonna forget

B-b-b-baby, you just ain’t seen n-n-nothin’ yet

Those in the UK may well remember the 1990s comedy show Harry Enfield’s Television Programme, which was a sketch show with a multitude of characters. Two of these were the parody version of 70s DJs, who Enfield called Smashie and Nicey – Dave Nice and Mike Smash, played by Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. They were so accurate in the way they took off the inane ramblings of DJs like Tony Blackburn and Alan Freeman, and always ended their sketches by cranking the handle to play their favourite song. Guess what it was! I could have played you a longer clip, but thought this brief one – actually an ad for a compilation album that bore their name – would give you a taster:

Maybe this song doesn’t have the deepest, most meaningful lyrics ever written, but who cares? It is still a great song, which brings back so many happy memories for me whenever I hear it. And at long last the fact that it didn’t make #1 here has been put to good use!

Song credits:

Written by: Randy Bachman

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

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