Not the Song I Mean Top Ten: Take the Money and Run (#4)

Tweet

For the next three songs in this list of song titles that make you think of one song while I mean another, I'm going with "double-whammy" song titles: the song may be different than the one you're used to when you hear that title, but they're both good songs. For today's song, bad rhymes are already popping into your head just from the sight of the title. Relax. That's not the song I mean. #4: Take the Money and Run YOU'RE THINKING: Steve Miller Band I MEAN: Crosby & Nash Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas You know he knows just exactly what the facts is He ain't gonna let those two escape justice (Steve Miller, "Take the Money and Run") Y'know, I read that executives at the Eagles' record company sent Messers Henley and Frey rhyming dictionaries to help them "speed along" the process of the follow-up album to Hotel California. Too bad Steve Miller didn't record on a Warner-affiliated label, because he obviously could've used one as well. Jokes aside, "Take the Money and Run" is a classic song, in every regard: one of Steve Miller's most memorable hits, one of the signature songs from 1976, and an FM "classic rock" favorite. And yes, I love it. As JJ once said, there's not a bad song on Fly Like an Eagle, and that includes this song....hokey though the rhymes in the third verse may be. However, there's another "Take the Money and Run." (Actually, there's two: Gerry Rafferty had a song by that title on Night Owl.) This one predates the 1976 Steve Miller song. And, as a lot of good songs are, this came from anger. In his autobiography Nash described the song as "a paean to our well-padded tour partners," referring to a 1974 CSNY tour where everyone got rich except the artists (not unique to CSNY, that's for sure). You can't go wrong either way when you take a song called "Take the Money and Run"! Take the Money and Run THE ONE YOU'RE THINKING: Written by Steve Miller Recorded by the Steve Miller Band From Fly Like an Eagle, 1976 THE ONE I MEAN: Written by Graham Nash Recorded by Crosby & Nash From Wind on the Water, 1975 You cannot tell me any more lies: