Those words have stuck with me for the longest. But that's what happens when your family kept the channel tuned to BET when you were growing up.

When I was 7, the channel used to broadcast for only six hours a day, giving us mostly blaxploitation movies and the R&B music videos MTV refused to air back then. Those six hours also gave us commercials for musical compilation LPs "not sold in stores," like the 25th-anniversary Motown collection (which I re-created for the fam, impersonating all the Motown greats, whenever it came on) and a gospel compilation that featured a certain Shirley Caesar song.

Near the end of the gospel commercial, the voice-over guy announced that if the viewer acted, like, now, that person will also get Caesar's uplifting hit song, "No Charge," as a bonus track. As Caesar sung the aforementioned lyrics, photos illustrating the song's narrative setup -- a boy handing over a list of completed chores to his mom, to which the mom hands back the list with the lyrics written on it -- played on-screen.

For me, that commercial is just as memorable as such BET ads as the commercial that featured the Rev. B.W. Smith's infamous "Who in the hell left the gate open?" sermon, and that commercial for a slow-jams collection that had one man begging the other to borrow the album. ("Oh no, my brotha, you have to get your own!") C'mon, you know you remember those too!

But the Caesar ad sticks with me for the response it would get from my family members. I can remember my mom and grandmother often singing the title whenever the song surfaced, practically rejoicing over the song's pro-mom aesthetic.

While the song was originally a country-music tune, penned by the late Harlan Howard, that became a hit for its singer, Melba Montgomery, in 1974, Caesar gave it a gospel kick for her version a year later. She deleted the coda where the boy learns to appreciate his mom (he writes "paid in full" on his list) and instead gives a shout-out to Jesus for giving his life "as a ransom" for Caesar. "I like to think that the very minute he shedded his blood," she sang, "my debt was paid in full."

But whether you know the Caesar version, the Montgomery version or even the version sung by Tammy Wynette, the message of true, priceless love, especially between a mother and son, is still intact -- and can still get you right in the cockles. "No Charge" is a Caesar number that always used to bring my family together -- often right in the middle of a Pam Grier movie.

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