Hand Me Down World

Album: Share The Land (1970)
Charted: 17
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Songfacts®:

  • Along with "Bus Rider," this was a main song for a trio called Brother, who were made up of Kurt Winter, Bill Wallace and Vance Masters. All three members of Brother wrote the song, but when The Guess Who recorded it, lead singer Burton Cummings made sure Winter got the sole writing credit, since he was a member of The Guess Who. Wallace and Masters did receive financial compensation under this agreement. >>>
    Suggestion credit:
    Barry Kesten - Bellmore, United States
  • Share The Land was the first album the group recorded after the departure of Randy Bachman, who went on to form Bachman-Turner Overdrive. This song's writer, Kurt Winter, was added to the band along with Greg Leskiw, giving the band two lead guitarists for the first time.

Comments: 8

  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn July 17, 1970, the Guess Who perform at the White House for President Richard Nixon and his royal guests, Prince Charles and Princess Anne. They do not play their hit "American Woman," as they are asked to refrain from performing it "as a matter of taste"...
    At the time the Canadian group's "Hand Me Down World" was in it's first week on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #89; six weeks later it would peak at #17 {for 2 weeks} and it spent 11 weeks on the Top 100...
    It reached #10 in their native Canada, and it broke the string of three straight #1 records on the RPM Singles chart, "No Time", "American Woman", and "No Sugar Tonight"...
    Between 1965 and 1974 the group had twenty-one records on the Hot Top 100 chart; five made the Top 10 with one reaching #1, "American Woman" for 3 weeks on May 3rd, 1970...
    http://weeklyview.net/2015/07/16/guess-whos-coming-to-nixons-white-house-part-1/
  • Barry from Sauquoit, Ny'American woman, get away from me; American woman, mama, let me be'*
    On July 17th 1970, the Guess Who performed at the White House for President Richard Nixon and for Prince Charles of England...
    At the time the group's "Hand Me Down World" was in its first week on Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart, it was at position #89...
    {See the next post below}...
    * They performed a nine song set at the White House; but omitted their #1 hit, "American Woman", the reason was because the President's wife, Pat Nixon, requested that the group not play it.
  • Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn July 12th 1970, "Hand Me Down World" by the Guess Who entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #89; and on August 30th, 1970 it peaked at #17 (for 2 weeks) and spent 11 weeks on the Top 100...
    It reached #10 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles chart...
    Between 1965 and 1974 the quartet had twenty-one Top 100 records, six made the Top 10 with one reaching #1, "American Woman", for 3 weeks in 1970...
    In their native Canada they had sixteen Top 10 records, with five reaching #1 and one peaking at #2.
  • Nancy from Baltimore, MdEven though this song was before my time, i really like it. It just has a good beat.
  • Don from Fairfield, OhThe Guess Who influenced a lot of musicians through to this day. The haunting melodies, the electrifying guitar playing of Randy Bachman and the vocals of Cummins, what a combination!
  • Ken 410 from Flint , Mii had lp's and cassttes before (being only 11 y. o.)...but this was one of the first cassette tapes i bought with my own $ and listened to on a small tape recorder and loved it. it was freaky to hear the line "i'm so aweful goddamned glad i'm not in your shoes" on bus rider.
  • Stefanie Magura from Rock Hill, ScYeah, it is an awesome song! The guitar solo at the beginning is pretty good, too!
  • Whitney from Clare, MiThis is an awesome song- wow I found this tape digging around thru my mom's old stuff, and I noticed it was The Guess Who, Greatest Hits, and I saw American Woman on it so I figured Hey, Sounds good...and by the end of the day, I had the whole tape memorized! Hand Me Down World is an awesome song, with some hidden meaning, and I suppose now we do have a hand me down world already.
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