Musical Gems - Gimme Your Money Please

BTS is the nickname of a K-pop band known in Korean as 방탄소년단 which translates roughly as "bulletproof youth group."  My wife, who was born in Korea, is a big fan.  But long before there was BTS, there was BTO - Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Bachman Turner Overdrive was founded in the early seventies.  Randy Bachman left the highly successful Canadian group, The Guess Who, in 1970.  He formed a new group, Brave Belt in 1971 with his brother Robbie and Chad Allen, a former bandmate from the Guess Who.  C. F. Turner and Randy's brother, Tim, joined the group after the first album.  Turner took over the lead vocals from Allen who left the group.  Brave Belt issued two albums and changed their name to Bachman-Turner Overdrive for the third album.  The group's name came from the two surnames in the group, Bachman (Randy, Robbi, and Tim) and Turner; and from the name of a trucking magazine they saw in the Colonial Steak House in Windsor, Ontario.

BTO's first album was the eponymous Bachman-Turner Overdrive.  And the first track on that album was a song called, "Gimme Your Money Please."

BTO had a very heavy, hard rock sound and much of that is due to the influence of C. F. Turner.   Robbie Bachman has commented that without Turner's contributions the musical style of the band would've been much different. "The first Brave Belt albums were very country-rock. Everything changed when Fred joined the band. We had Fred Turner's heavy, rough voice. We evolved because of Mr. Turner."

I was walking on down the alley

When a face I've never seen

Came so from deep in the darkness

And his mouth came on real mean

And I saw that he'd been liquored

And he staggered up to, you know, he staggered up to his feet

And he said, boy, you'd better move real slow

And gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Being born and raised in New York

There ain't nothing you won't see

'Cause the streets are filled with bad goings-on

And you know that's no place to be

But my car broke down in the evening

You know it just stopped stone cold

Stopped stone cold in the street

And a dirty mean man with sharp glass eyes

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Being born and raised in New York

There ain't nothing you won't see

'Cause the streets are filled with bad goings-on

And you know that's no place to be

But my car broke down in the evening

You know it just stopped stone cold

Stopped stone cold in the street

And a dirty mean man with a shotgun in his hand

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

Wasn't that strange

Wasn't that strange indeed

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

He said, gimme your money please

Songwriters: Charles Turner

Gimme Your Money Please lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Randy Bachman played lead guitar on the song, Fred Turner played bass and sang vocals, Randy Bachman was on drums, and Tim Bachman played rythmn guitar.

BTO went on to have a string of big hits in the seventies, including, "Let It Ride", "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", "Takin' Care of Business", "Hey You" and "Roll on Down the Highway."  But this was the first taste of what became the BTO sound: heavy and loud, but with catchy melody.