No Time

Album: American Woman (1970)
Charted: 5
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Songfacts®:

  • This song about moving on and finding your true calling was written by Guess Who guitarist Randy Bachman and lead singer Burton Cummings.

    In our interview with Bachman, he explained that musically, the song was inspired by two tracks on the Buffalo Springfield Again album: "Rock & Roll Woman" and "Hung Upside Down." Neil Young of Buffalo Springfield (a fellow Canadian) played an acetate of the album for Cummings and Bachman when his travels took him to Winnipeg. The they heard it, they loved the country-rock sound and set out to write something like it. "That was our country-rock song," Bachman said. "Me and Burton trying to be like Neil and Stephen Stills."
  • According to Randy Bachman, the guitar lick on this song is an inversion of what Stephen Stills played on the Buffalo Springfield track "Hung Upside Down." When Bachman heard the theme song to the TV show Law & Order (composed by Mike Post), it sounded familiar. "It's the same riff," Bachman told us. "It's just recycling the riff in a different context."

    Note that Bachman doesn't fault Post for lifting the riff: Randy believes that just about any modern music music is based on something that came before.

Comments: 3

  • Damamae from IdahoThe 'killing floor' is an old blues metaphor. It can mean anything from a slaughterhouse to a bad breakup to the war in Vietnam - any kind a hell on earth. Check out Howlin' Wolf's 'Killin' Floor'...
  • Joe Granger from Oly, WaAll these years I thought the line was “No time for the killing wars”, not “floors” because it made sense during the Vietnam protests.
  • Dave Cinelli from Somewhere In The Great State Of NyThe big give away is the line "No time for the 'Killing Floor'", meaning he's being taken advantage of by quite possibly a gold-digger.
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