"The Guess Who were very much still a work in progress".
So concluded my review of their previous chart topper, the forgettable "Laughing" from September, 1969. As if in full knowledge of this, The Guess Who took the opening track from Canned Wheat — which is probably their finest album — and kept at it. The LP version opens with a needless bit of instrumental doodling which they wisely excised. In addition, they cut it down to a more manageable three minutes and forty-five seconds. Finally, they decided to fully lean into the influence of fellow Canadian Neil Young and his longtime frienemy Stephen Stills.
Such is the debt owed to the two former members of Buffalo Springfield that you might even think they had been liberally cribbing from the then hugely popular quartet of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as well. And while it's almost certain that Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman were familiar with the popular '69 album Crosby, Stills and Nash, the pair seemed much more interested in mixing those patented crystal clear folk rock harmonies (likely the preserve of the vocally rich Cummings) with the harder rock edge favoured by the Stills-Young faction (Bachman being no stranger to shredding himself). In any case, Young had only just become a member of CS&N, with the newly rechristened quartet's strength-to-strength album Déjà Vu still a couple weeks away from release.
"No Time" wasn't simply remade for the singles charts but it then ended up appearing on American Woman, the Guess Who's most popular album. Compared to the consistency of Canned Wheat it falls a bit short. Nevertheless, its high spots (the title track — which, spoilers, we're just about to get to — "No Sugar Tonight", "No Time" itself) are some of their greatest and most memorable moments. If the peak of their creativity had occurred a year earlier, now they appeared to be at the peak of their powers.
(Redoing older songs for future albums and/or singles releases wasn't especially new for The Guess Who. Minor 1968 singles "Of a Pin Dropping" and "When Friends Fall Out" would receive second chances on Canned Wheat and American Woman, the latter of which would become an all too on-the-nose addition to the album that marked the group's most lasting schism)
The song's Wikipedia entry notes that "No Time" operates as a "reverse Dear John Letter" with a man explaining to his girl why they're relationship is coming to an end. For the most part this tracks but there is one bit that makes me wonder if something more relevant to the world is involved as well. In the midst of listing of some of the many things he has "no time" for — "a gentle rain", "my watch and chain", "revolving doors" — he suddenly reveals that there is also no time for "the killing floor". While it is always possible that he's referring to toiling in a slaughterhouse, I have to wonder if this line has more to do with Vietnam and protest movements going on around the world. Perhaps he's a Yippie who is transitioning into a Yuppie, a Jerry Rubin-type figure who can no longer prioritize world peace because he has a living to make. "Seasons change and so do I": we may not think that our young, idealistic selves will change over time but it typically happens whether we want it to or not.
The timing couldn't have been more appropriate since it marked the end of Cummings-Bachman relationship. The pair had no time left for each other but fortunately they were able to squeeze out one more album and one more huge hit before this particular iteration of The Guess Who crumbled. As proud Canadians they were happy to stand together against a bully from down south whatever the differences between them.
Score: 9
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