Posted On: Wednesday - June 26th 2019 8:09PM MST
In Topics:   Music  Race/Genetics
There hasn't been time for any thoughtful blog posting today, and tomorrow doesn't look to be any better - hopefully Friday and Saturday will have more. Peak Stupidity apologizes, though our 2nd favorite blogger links to data that says apologies don't work (that's apologies in the political world only). I'd like to keep up posting at least once per day, so an apology is indeed in order.
How about some music, at least? This BTO - Bachman Turner Overdrive song was something I'd first heard on their Greatest Hits album, and, though it was a single, it was not any kind of hit on the radio, back in their day in the mid 1970's.
I'll relate this song to politics in just a couple of quick ways. The current stupidity about reparations to be paid out of taxpayers' money to people, but only CERTAIN PEOPLE, who's far-off ancestors had been harmed in some way. Well, Peak Stupidity's counter-offer of a very reasonable and literal reparations plan has been on the table for a few months now. It is eminently fair, as it does not try to punish men for the sins of their fathers. C'mon, ctrl-left, if you really want to go all Old Testament and shit, there's a lot of other stuff we'd like to bring up ...
It seems to be the same groups of people (albeit with new immigrants piling on now just due to intensely unmitigated gall) who have been wanting the free stuff for years now. Over the last 50 years , this theft has been done via the Welfare State, and more recently, this reparations talk. Any which way, attempted robbery is attempted robbery, and it may as well just be the old-fashioned kind described in the song here "Gimme Your Money, Please!"
The lyric line saying "Being born and raised in New York, there ain't nothin' that you won't see." is sure not autobiographical, as BTO was formed by 3 brothers and the singer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Before they got really famous, their territory included Thunder Bay, Ontario, and as far east as Toronto, Ontario, nowhere near New York City! (I'm sure it was just as well.) At the time this song was written, 1973, NYC was in the beginnings of it's high crime era, which went on until Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor in the 1990's. The song fit very well. The heavy-duty no-nonsense policing brought about by Mayor Giuliani helped whatever was still left of the ordinary working man (a favorite of BTO songs, BTW, such as Blue Collar), though it was probably pushed by the rich elites that make NYC their homes.
It's all falling right back apart again, with the almost complete exodus of the white working class and the administration by the Commie DiBlasio. Maybe someone like Paula Abdul or Lady Gaga can make a remake - Lord knows these types can't write their own decent music! BTO could now take this same kind of material directly from their experience in modern-day Toronto, as it is not the Great White North anymore.
"Gimme Your Money Please" has a great heavy guitar sound, and I really like that guitar lick that goes right along with the vocals, when Fred sings "Wasn't that strange, wasn't that strange, indeed."
The 3 Bachman brothers, along with Fred Turner, played until Tim Bachman wasn't fitting in with the band anymore, and was replaced by Blair Thornton on guitar.
Fred Turner - bass guitar, lead vocals.
Randy Bachman - lead guitar, lead vocals.
Tim Bachman - guitar, vocals, later replaced by Blair Thornton.
Robbie Bachman - drums.
Music sure runs in the Bachman family, as Randy Bachman had originally played in The Guess Who (as opposed to The (Just Plain) Who*, and his son is a musician, with his great 1990's song She's so High having been featured on Peak Stupidity already.
* Itself having been featured here and here.
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