“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” is one of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s (BTO) biggest hits, but it actually started off as a joke.
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“Ain’t” was written by founding member Randy Bachman as the lead single from BTO’s third studio album, Not Fragile, released in 1974. The song was primed for success thanks to the band’s wildly popular previous single, “Takin’ Care of Business.”
BTO’s founding member, Randy Bachman, wrote “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” solo. In the song, he poked fun at then-manager and brother Gary Bachman’s speech impediment. Despite its non-serious origins, the song continued to build on BTO’s success and became a fan favorite. Below, we explore the meaning behind “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.”
Meaning Behind the Lyrics
Though the song drew comparisons to The Who’s “My Generation” for its similar guitar riffs and vocal stuttering, Bachman asserts that it was written as a joke for Gary. In fact, BTO wasn’t even planning on releasing it, as they were only going to send a private copy to Gary.
“He had a speech impediment,” Bachman is quoted as saying in Fred Bronson’s 1988 book, The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. “We thought, just for fun… we’d take this song and I’d stutter and we’d send it to him. He’ll have the only copy in the world of this song by BTO.”
The band was already in the thick of recording Not Fragile when Bachman had an instrumental tune that he ended up putting lyrics to. “It was basically just an instrumental and I was fooling around,” he continues. “I wrote the lyrics, out of the blue, and stuttered them through.”
Bachman was musically inspired by guitarist Dave Mason of Traffic, especially his song “Only You Know and I Know,” along with the Doobie Brothers’ “Listen to the Music.”
“I copped those jangling rhythms, changed the chords and then added some power chords of my own,” Bachman explained of his process, according to Louder Sound. “I had a work in progress, in two parts: a great rhythm and a heavy riff.”
As for the lyrics, Bachman says they weren’t particularly inspired, noting that the song came to him “by accident.”
“The words just flowed out without thought. I met a Devil woman, and she took my heart away – that sounded good,” he describes. “Then for the chorus, I copied the way he’d say: You ain’t seen n-n-nothing yet, and also the way he stumbled on f-f-forget, and the way he said b-b-b baby. I liked it as an idea but I was never going to finish it off…I sang the storyline off the cuff. My first wife used to say to me, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’ The Devil woman or gentlewoman was my wife. Then when I sang, she said I had it coming to me and I wanted it that way, I was riffing.”
Unexpected Success
The band had recorded eight songs for the album, but when Charlie Fach Jr., Executive Vice President of A&R at Mercury Records at the time, came to Seattle to listen to the final product, he said it was missing a “magic thing.” He then asked if they had any other songs to add.
“We have this one song, but it’s a joke,” Bachman told him. “I’m laughing at the end. I sang it on the first take. It’s sharp, it’s flat, I’m stuttering to do this thing for my brother.” But “Ain’t” immediately won over the approval of Fach Jr., who said it had a “brightness” to it.
Bachman later re-recorded his vocals on his own accord, but was unsatisfied with how it turned out. “I tried to sing it, but I sounded like Frank Sinatra,” he recalls in The Billboard Book. “It didn’t fit.”
At Fach’s request, the band went with the original version that included the stuttering. Not long after the album’s release in September 1974, radio stations started picking up “Ain’t” to the point where Fach Jr. insisted they release it as a single.
“I started to hear it getting played and I was embarrassed,” Bachman explains. “I’d turn the radio down. My wife would say to me, ‘Look, at last, they’re playing a song of yours like mad…’ I was producer, so I had final say on what went out. I woke up one day and asked myself, ‘Why am I stopping this?’… so I said to Charlie, ‘O.K., release it. I bet it does nothing.’”
The song quickly shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became BTO’s only major hit in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 2 on the U.K. Singles chart. Not Fragile was their only album to have reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It charted in multiple other countries from Germany to South Africa.
In the end, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” taught Bachman a meaningful lesson about the art of writing a hit song. “When it was all over, to realize that I could have a million-seller and a number one record without sitting down with mental giants like Paul McCartney and… saying, ‘Let’s write a number one song,’ — you really can’t,” he reflects in The Billboard Book. “The magic is out of your hands.”
(Photo by Jorgen Angel/Redferns)
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