Melba Montgomery, No Charge | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 126th edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “No Charge” by country singer, Melba Montgomery.   

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 126^th edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “No Charge” performed by Melba Montgomery.

“My little boy came into the kitchen this evening / While I was fixing supper / And he handed me a piece of paper he’d been writing on.” What did it say, Melba Montgomery? “For mowing the yard: five dollars / And for making my own bed this week: one dollar,” the country singer narrates. On “No Charge”, her little boy gave her a list of chores and good deeds, amounting to a “Total owed: fourteen seventy-five.” “No Charge” is the song that Montgomery is best known for. Besides topping the country charts, “No Charge” peaked at no. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100. She originally recorded this classic in 1974, written by the late Harlan Howard. Pete Drake produced.  Fittingly, it appeared on her album named, No Charge.

Montgomery sings from a maternal perspective. Narrating and singing beautifully with personality and a heavy country twang, she teaches her son a valuable lesson about how love is priceless.  “For the time and the tears / And the cost through the years, there’s no charge,” she sings, continuing, “When you add it all up / The full cost of my love is no charge.” The final verse is the most touching:

“Well, when he finished readin’

He had great big old tears in his eyes

And he looked up at me and he said

‘Mama, I sure do love you.’

Then he took the pen

And in great big letters

He wrote: ‘Paid in full.’”

Besides sublime singing and songwriting, the production is sweet too. Supporting Melba’s musical cause are strings, rhythm acoustic guitar, and pedal steel.  The acoustic guitar superbly carries the rhythm alongside the drums.  “No Charge” is one of country music’s best.

Melba Montgomery // No Charge // Elektra // 1974

Melba Montgomery, No Charge: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No.126 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Elektra; OpenClipart-Vectors, Clker-Free-Vector-Images, Speedy McVroom from Pixabay]