Rock Title Songs: It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)

Tweet

Hi from Festus, Missouri! As George Jones sang, “There’s no Riviera in Festus, Missouri.” But there is a Holiday Inn Express. I’ll head back into St. Louis today, but first I’ll give you some more songs with “rock” in the title. So did last month have too much country for you? Here’s a band that’ll never be mistaken for a country band. It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) - AC/DC From @JudyEv territory — Australia — this the first band that may owe its career to a sewing machine! The sewing machine had a switch on the back of it for alternating or direct current, which gave the band its name. Then Angus Young’s sister made the schoolboy outfits that became Angus’ trademark stage outfit. This is also the first band that put bagpipes in a hard rock song. The story is that their record producer George Young, Angus and Malcolm’s brother and member of the Easybeats, remembered lead singer Bon Scott saying he’d been in a bagpipe band, so he said, “Hey, let’s have some bagpipes on this song!” Well, Bon was the drummer in the bagpipe band…. Still, they put the sound in the song, and it became legendary. So legendary, in fact, that AC/DC never performed it live after Bon’s death. It was just too much of a Bon Scott song. And the title is the absolute truth. It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll) Written by Bon Scott, Angus Young, and Malcolm Young Recorded by AC/DC From T.N.T., 1975 Getting old, getting gray, getting ripped off: