IT’S COWBELL TIME
It is July 11, 2008 and there has been much about the cowbell making the rounds. Some of the campiest yet interesting popular music songs have come with a ubiquitous cowbell sounds on the recordings. The top hit on Google in a search trying to find the tempo of TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS gets me to an illegal site with an accurate measurement of the song’s overall tempo, but not the accelerations nor decelerations. The overall average tempo of the song was correct, as my digital download measured, as noted in the summary below, 130.5 beats per minute while the one on Google’s top hit read “130 [beat per minute].”
There was no place to find any contiguous calibration as I offer here. In the 1970s neither metronomes nor drum machines were used in the majority of popular music recording. As you can see in these calibrations, Overdrive is on a linear trend of accelerating tempo. In my work have have found in looking at lists of songs that I choose myself and calibrate myself that when the speed of a song is 119-128 beats per minute that songs have a strong and predictable tendency to emote victory. When something gets faster than around 128 1/2 bpm, I have never found patterns as far as emotion. I have rather seen an “any emotion goes” randomness, which one would expect.
For me, in this song, I think that if he had held the speed down it would be a victory song. I really do not hear it that way. I hear it as being joyous, celebratory and even hedonist, but I do not hear a victory in the man’s story of his life that he is ‘takin’ care of business’. I hear: wow, this guy *really is* taking care of business, meaning, working a hard job rather than the “I want My MTV” like job he self-deprecatingly refers to in the spirit of this workingman’s song of cowbellness-itude. Moreover, yje lush history of the song beats same out. In the screen shots from the Amazing dramatic series The Young and The Restless, the character cane is featured along with that of Genoa city’s local art professor, Adrian Korbell – nicknamed “Cowbell” by local businessman Cane, the grandson of Kate Chancellor, a role played by Jeannie Cooper, who recently won the award for best Actress in a daytime Drama series. This is the first in a short series on those songs we all love to knock – literally and figuratively – some of us are so old that we saw John Belushi doing it on Saturday Night Live – a series I am just calling: “MORE COWBELL!” Some jokes just never get old. I know I got old but the joke stays funny – happens to us all! Just thinking about songs involving the cowbell have me using too many exclamation points! Like that one.
in QuickList
Bachman Turner Overdrive “Takin Care Of Business” Live ’74 … bachman turner overdrive taking takin care of business bto …
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Filmed in a Canadian prison in 1988. … bto taking care of business …
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a cover of taking care of business at a outdoor barbq, august, 2007 … lost cause bachman turner overdrive cover music …
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Taking care of Business by BTO(Bachman-Turner Overdrive), Pawn Game Style! … Pawn Game PawnGame grs345 BTO Bachman …
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Performed at Chamberfest 2008 … taking care of business bto bachman turner overdrive …
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/www.rewindstudios.co.uk … Bachman Turner Overdrive Roll On Down The Highway you aint seen nothing yet taking Takin …
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legion of rock stars … legion rock stars legionofrockstars lrs lrs bachman turner overdrive bto takin’ care business …
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taking care o business … vicksburg smitty efa alex kyle super awesome music video taking care of business bachman …
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Ernie rockin out at Little Texas. … Dean Crawford and The Dunns River Band country music bachman-turner overdrive …
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Ironically, going back to the search while I could not fond anything on a legal site where the tempo was given, and on all such illegal sites – they are illegal because the lyrics & music have been copyrighted and not licensed for use to the company that I will not name but came up number one on a Google search. Ironically they had a steady advertiser: an identity theft protection service! I guess they ought to know about identity protection, because when you break the law that way and still want to collect money that if went anywhere ought to go to the legal copyright holder’s and royalty owner’s of the song, but instead it goes to some “web designer” whose parents were teenagers when the song was popular. It amazes me people can do this all day and make money and sleep. I do this about once every two months just because repeating an illegal act for the sake of showing what same act was does not make it legal, as if it were legal I would have the chords and tabs and lyrics on these pages “Every day! and Every way!” (to borrow from the spirit of the song), but that would could have me disbarred as an attorney, and being disbarred for stealing Bachman-Turner Overdrive (I have just renamed our driveway same name, by the way, subject to my wife’s approval, which of course I will get!) lyrics is a bad way to get kicked out of the New York Bar. Also, as an amateur musician who was once a church composer, I feel those royalties going into other people’s pockets.
Personally, I wrote for the church on the simple act that when people stole my hymns, which they sometimes did – I hope they still do, as Norm Dozier and I put together some Episcopalian pieces for the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City. Norm never admitted to being a Dozier of Lamont/Dozier/Holland Dozier’s, but everyone knew he was. And yes, I realize it is a case of “every one else is doing it” and buying actual B.T.O. sheet music by mail would seem anachronistic, but at 45 years old I’ve lived 1/2 in the analogue and 1/2 in the digital world. In the past reading this sentence would have meant you had an expensive book in your hand – now it just means that you’ve been cool enough to read my whole rap about the law of stealing lyrics and why I do not do it on a regular basis. The Beatles tempo project was put on hold because of an issue with lyrics – the most popular charts contained lyrics in them, however Paul McCartney’s and John Lennon’s estate and whoever the songs were sold to have not given me permission to use them, so for now that has got to hold. As far as B.T.O., I wanted to do it so I clipped this from a common illegal site I will paste below. There are a couple of things there that are of particular interest, one being that the song only has 3 chords and each is a 7th chord, which to you non musicians just means that that the harmonies are, like any major chord, on a do-re-mi scale, do+mi+so (first, major third and perfect fifth) but unlike a major seventh chord which would add a “ti” on the do-re-mi scale adds a ti flat, in this case, the C major gets its B flat, the B flat major gets its A flat and the F major gets its E flat). So the four part hamonies on every inch of that recording are – amazing but common. Secondly, I found it interesting that the song was in my head for years despite its simplicity – it was all about the groove of it. Do said, I’m still not sure what constitutes a groove. The speed, as you see, is not the groove. Then again, almost all of the Rolling Stones grooves were between 132 and 139 bpm.
Meanspeed-Carlton Summary
song title=TAKIN’ CARE OF BUSINESS
performer=Bachman-Turner Overdrive
time calibrated, total=2,565.27 seconds
beats calibrated, total=5580
beats per trial=620
average beat=0.460 seconds
average tempo per trial=130.5 beats
most intereresting rhyme=’mine’ + ‘ovetime’
“and I’ve been taking care of business, it’s all mine,
taking care of business, and working overtime”
composer=Randy Bachman
recording source=iTunes®
album=20th Century Masters, The Millennium Collection: The Best of Bachman-Turner Overdrive
intellectual property=© 2000, UMG, Inc.
Kind=Protected AAC audio file
Size= 4.7 MB
Bit Rate=128 kbps
Sample Rate=44.100 kHz
Profile=Low Complexity
Channels=Stereo
FairPlay Version=2
File Type=m4p
BTO - TAKIN CARE OF BUSINESS - Meanspeed Tempo Chart
Ian Andrew Schneider
July 11, 2008
clipped from [redacted] -
Taking Care of Business Bachman Turner
OD===Key:C===Tempo:130
Here's the riff when played with the C7 - for the Bb7, drop down two
frets on the same two strings, and for the F7, play as with C7 but on
the A & D strings...
C7
e:-----------------------------------|
B:-----------------------------------|
G:-----------------------------------|
D:-----------------------------------|
A:--/10------12------10--10--12------|
E:--/8-------8-------8---8---8-------|
1 v 2 v 3 v 4 v
The chords are just repetitions as....
C7 ;Bb7 ;F7 ;C7
C7 ;Bb7 ;F7 ;C7
[you get the picture - figure it out yourself from here---]
[1 phrase guitar alone]
[3 phrases with band] [lead guitar does riff C-XII Bb-X F-XIII]
[]
[] They
get up every mornx with the alarm clock's warnx, take the
8:15 into the city
There's a whistle up above and people push and people shove and the
girls, who are tryin' to look pretty. And if your
train's on time you can get to work by nine and
start to sleep and talk to get your pay If you
ever get annoyed, look at me, I'm self-employed,
I love to work at nothing all day. And I've been
takin' care of business, every day taking care of business, every way
TCOB, it's all mine TCOB, & workin' overtime, workout
[guitar solo for one chorus]
[] There's work
easy as fishin', you can be a musician if
you could make sounds loud and mellow Get a
second hand guitar and chances are you can go far if you
get in with the right bunch of fellows People
see you having fun just a- lying in the sun, and
tell them that you like it this way. It's the
work that we avoid and we're all self-employed We
love to work at nothin' all day. And we've been
TCOB every day TCOB every way
TCOB it's all mine TCOB & workin' overtime FUNKY!!!
[guitar solo on one chorus] [6th string - notes are CCCEE BbDCBbBb]
[]
[just drums]
[....drums]
[band instrumental for one chorus]
[] {shout} Taking care of business when I'm away everyday!!!!!
[guitar solo for one chorus]
[] They
get up every morning from their alarm clock's warning, take the
8:15 into the city. There's a
whistle up above and people push and people shove and the
girls who are trying to look pretty. And if your
train's on time you can get to work by nine, and
start to sleep and talk to get your pay. If you
ever get annoyed, look at me, I'm self-employed, I
love to work at nothing all day. And I've been
TCOB every day TCOB every way
TCOB it's all mine TCOB and workin' overtime, OO Ya
[drums only]
[drums] [bass comes in]
TCOB Woo TCOB
TCOB Ya TCOB [guitar comes in]
TCOB Every day TCOB every way
TCOB It's all mine TCOB & working overtime WOO!!
TCOB TCOB
TCOB TCOB
TCOB TCOB
TCOB TCOB
TCOB TCOB
TCOB TCOB [end]
A legal history, by wikipedia
Takin’ Care of Business
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| “Takin’ Care of Business” | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by Bachman-Turner Overdrive | |||||
| Album | Bachman-Turner Overdrive II | ||||
| Released | December 1973 | ||||
| Recorded | 1973 | ||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||
| Length | ~4:54 | ||||
| Label | Mercury | ||||
| Writer | Randy Bachman | ||||
| Bachman-Turner Overdrive II track listing | |||||
|
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“Takin’ Care of Business” is a song written by Randy Bachman and first recorded by Canadian rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive for their 1973 album Bachman-Turner Overdrive II. In 1990 a movie with the title Taking Care of Business (known in some parts of the world as “Filofax”) starring Jim Belushi used the song in its soundtrack.
Licensed as the theme to Office Depot commercials and re-recorded by many bands (including a famous cover by The Chipmunks)[citation needed], this song is one of the most recognizable in Classic Rock.
Randy Bachman had written what would later become “Takin’ Care of Business” while still a member of The Guess Who. His original idea was to write about a recording technician who worked on The Guess Who’s recordings. This particular technician would take the 8:15 train to get to work, inspiring the lyrics “catch the 8:15 to the city.” The standard uniform worn by technicians at the studio was a white collared shirt, which gave Randy the name “White Collar Worker.”
The first guitar riff Randy had arranged for the song was blatantly that of The Beatles‘ “Paperback Writer.” When Randy first played this for Burton Cummings, Burton declared that he was ashamed of him.
Sometime later Randy was driving and listening to the radio when he heard that particular radio show’s catch phrase “Takin’ Care of Business.” After this he rewrote the lyrics to “White Collar Worker” with a new chorus and the title “Takin’ Care of Business.” Along with this he wrote a new guitar riff, which was simply a I-VII-IV progression, played with a shuffle. (though the I-VII-IV progression is quite common, the riff became quite famous) The was recorded by Bachman-Turner Overdrive for their second album Bachman-Turner Overdrive II. It would reach #12 on Billboard and arguably become B.T.O.’s most well known song.
During his Every Song Tells a Story concert, which was recorded and released on DVD and VHS, he tells the story of how he came up with this song.
The song has been used as an advertising campaign for companies such as Office Depot, whose business target consists largely of small business owners. The song was also used for many years in advertisements for Officeworks, an Australian chain of office supply stores which bear much similarity to the US Office Depot stores. In New Zealand, mobile operator Vodafone has used the song in a series of advertisements for their business-oriented mobile plans. Many have noticed the irony of this, as the song focuses on being lazy; the song focuses on life of an unemployed musician, namely “work[ing] at nothing all day” an tongue-in-check calling it “taking care of business”.
The song has been used in a number of movies including the James Belushi/Charles Grodin movie of the same title and A Knight’s Tale.
In 2004, Bachman rewrote the song into a Christmas version titled “Takin’ Care of Christmas,” which was released on a Holiday CD of the same title. [1]
In addition, Randy Bachman of BTO uses the opening section of the song as the theme music of his CBC Radio One show, Vinyl Tap.
In his television show The Tom Green Subway Monkey Hour, Tom Green sings the song dressed as Elvis Presley whilst visiting Japan.
During the NASA space shuttle mission STS-115, the song was played at the start of day 5 for Canadian astronaut Steve MacLean.
The song played in several episodes of Australian soap Opera Neighbours between 2003 and 2006. The most recent use was in a scene where Robert Robinson lured his father, Paul into a mineshaft.
The song was used in the popular Australian Film ‘Kenny’ as the main theme song.
Among the many teams to use the song during sporting events, the New York Mets played the song after victories during the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Their division rival Atlanta Braves used the song during their run of 14 consecutive division titles.
The opening riffs and melody to the song bears similarity to David Bowie‘s 1973 song Watch That Man from the Aladdin Sane album. No links between the artists or songs have been as of yet identified.
