I have known Mr. Benker for a long, long time. He was my first comedy friend as we started out in the biz on the same day back in January of 1982. Here he does a great job of picking apart this classic!
Here's the song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTti_fYPiWY&feature=fvst
Take the Money and Run
"Take the Money and Run" is a song recorded in 1976 by the Steve Miller Band. A song about two young bandits, and featured on the album Fly Like an Eagle. The song peaked at #11 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
The song also shares the same basic chordal structure with Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London”
The lame story is not as big a mess as how the author attempts to tell it.
This is a story ‘bout Billy Joe and Bobby Sue
It is a story that starts by telling you that it is in fact, a story...the names in the story are quite androgenous so it is either about two hillbillies of undisclosed gender...that could be brother and sister... or it is about two southern lesbians
Two young lovers with nothing better to do
This could confirm the hillbilly brother and sister theory.
Than sit around the house, get high and watch the tube
Sounds like a full rich day for hillbillies
Here’s what happened when they decided to cut loose
They headed down to Old El Paso
Whoa...settle down you two!! Cuttin loose in Old El Paso!!! When I want to “cut loose”, I know Old El Paso is the first place I want to go...to buy more drugs, and to buy a jar of Salsa!
That’s where they ran into a great big hassle
When sung in the original recording, the line sounds like “they ran into a great big asshole”...I hear that and I envision them physically with big bags of money and guns drawn running straight into a giant anus....that or getting into a car wreck with Newt Gingrich.
Billy Joe, shot a man while robbing his castle
I don’t think THEY ran into a great big hassle, the guy they robbed and shot was the one who had the great big hassle run into HIM...Billy Joe was the hassle-er. Also, I have been to El Paso a few times, and the only castles I ever saw was at the mini golf place, or the mini hamburger restaurant.
Bobby sue, took the money and run
This is not a typo...Bobby Sue took the money, past tense and run...in present tense...She’s good, she managed to change tense in the middle of a single action...She could have “taken the money and ran”, but that would screw up the chorus....She could “take the money and runs” but that would sound like she stole diarrhea. The only thing we know for sure is Bobby Sue did indeed, run off with the money grammatically incorrect fashion..
Go, On take the Money and Run
This is a bold endorsement of the heinous and felonious actions of Billy Joe and Bobby Sue...Go on, shoot a man in cold blood, rob his castle, you have nothing better to do , Go on, take the money... take it!!! get the hell out of here...it’s okay!!
Go On take the Money and Run
The encouragement is repeated in case the murderers didn’t think of this exit strategy themselves...then blasphemed:
OOO Lord! Go On take the Money and Run
Billy Mac is a detective down in Texas
Another bi-monikerred southern guy enters the story...and in case of confusion, we get clarity on which state in the union Old El Paso is located.
You know he knows exactly what the facts is
Billy Mac does not know what the facts are, but he definitely knows what the facts IS....that the kind of detective he are. Or maybe he knows what a FAX is...even though they hadn’t been invented yet in 1976.
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
At least that’s what it says in his Texas detective oath
He makes his living off of other people’s taxes
This says to me, Billy Mac works for H&R Block on the side for extra money...
It’s in this verse where the author of the song does not take poetic license, but rather, he is beaten by the poetic police and has his poetic license revoked. In an historical move, the author rhymes Texas, Facts is, justice and taxes...Could he have been with Billy Joe and Bobby Sue getting high while he wrote this verse?
He would have had better luck rhyming this verse had he started with “Bernie Mac has a defective pound of Tampax”
Bobby Sue, oh she slipped away
Well, you see, she escaped justice right there...
Billy Joe caught up the very next day
Another escapee...
They got the money, hey, you know they got away
Where the fuck is Billy Mac?? They got away! All his crap about letting those two escape justice is just that, crap! We need another detective for a missing person case..... Did Billy Mac just give up? Is he on another case? Or is the author holding out on us and secretly wrote a verse where Billy Joe and Bobby Sue come face to face with Billy Mac and they offer him a he chunk if he buried the guy they shot and to let them off the hook for robbery, and he took the deal as long as his name didn’t get another mention in the song...
They headed down south and they’re still running today
They started out in Texas and they headed down south from there...our fugitives are currently living in a penguin colony in Antactica, and are going nowhere, much like the story in this song. Ooh, Lord!
Go On, take the Money and Run
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