Music / Song Review

You Need to Listen to this Song Right Now #34

Heavy Rotation — It’s a Long Way to the Top if You Want to Rock and Roll, AC/DC (High Voltage, 1976)

Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that, one way or another, got lots of airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotation that a particular record was given on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.

Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, just in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.

For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that you come back to from time to time and still feels just as good.

This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.

Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history, and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at, and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?

I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read this than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.

What song is in your head right now? Here’s the one that won’t leave mine today:

#34 — It’s a Long Way to the Top if You Want to Rock and Roll, AC/DC (High Voltage, 1976)

It’s Christmas, so I threw on High Voltage while doing a little baking because I couldn’t get its festive joie de vivre / let it all hang out sound out of my head. Some will be left scratching their heads at this; others will get it immediately.

You can say what you want about the present-day incarnation of this band, but fifty years ago, they were an honest-to-God bar room rock and roll band and a bar room brawl waiting to happen in Sydney, Australia. Tight pants, long hair, larger-than-life sound — they were not everyone’s cup of tea. Parents, mostly.

Formed by the Young Brothers, Angus (on lead guitar) and Malcolm (on rhythm), they hit their initial stride when they recruited Bon Scott on vocals. The songs were mostly about one thing on the lads’ minds at the time: women, how to get them, and what to do once you did.

The music has always been straight ahead and in your face, far more hard rock than it was ever heavy metal and young white males around the world adored it.

When Scott, a notorious partier who had lived his life to the fullest, finally expired in an alcohol-sodden haze in 1980 at 33, the band came hurtling back and into the stratosphere with Brian Johnson at the helm and the legendary Back in Black album, featuring the title track of the same name.

Their sound changed at that point, and I am not sure it was for the better. It went from being a very straightforward and instantly catchy one to a far bigger, more stadium-oriented sound.

Most of the songs' basic construction and chord progression remained the same, as did the thinly veiled subject matter of pretty much all of them. They hit on a formula that has made them millionaires many times over in the forty years since. Millions of fans worldwide went along for the ride, eyebrows raised and tongues firmly in cheek.

But in the middle of the 1970s, their sound was far less produced and much more raw. It’s a Long Way to the Top if You Want to Rock and Roll, the lead track on High Voltage (but also on an earlier Australia-only release called TNT), is the best example I can think of this. However, the entire album is laden with instantly recognizable bar room boogie stomp rock classics of the genre. The song is tailor-made for Bon Scott’s voice, stage presence, performance, and general demeanour. In fact, so much so that with Johnson singing, AC/DC has not performed it live.

Off we go, and things kick off with a rhythm guitar riff from Malcolm on his Gretsch, followed by our first hint of Angus on his Gibson at 00:08. The bass drum and toms arrive on cue courtesy of Phil Rudd (the only Australian-born member of the whole band, by the way) who lays down the pace for the rest of the song. High hat and snare at 00:15, and this thing is already chugging.

At 00:30, Bon Scott’s instantly recognizable and inimitable, barely restrained vocal wail joins the fray.

“Riding down the highway,

Going to a show

Stopping on the by-ways

Playing rock and roll”

Yup. That’s what they do, alright. AC/DC’s lyrics never required too many intellectual leaps from its listeners over the years. There was no need for poetic flourishes; it just did what it said on the tin. This time, instead of wine, women, and song, the subject matter is the trials and tribulations of a young band just starting out and having to negotiate the literal and metaphoric potholes that they encounter along the way.

Basically, they seek to make the point that if you want to make it in this business, be prepared to get cheated, beaten up, robbed, assaulted, and stolen. There are no shortcuts, and dues must be paid. “I’ll tell you, folks, it’s harder than it looks, and it’s a long way to the top,” etc.

It goes without saying, I’d have thought.

But never mind the basic nature of the lyrics; that’s not why we’re here. The irresistible groove of the song is now firmly established, and really, it could just keep going like this for the next two minutes.

But wait.

In come the bagpipes at 1:26 for the first time.

Scott and the Young Brothers were all originally from Scotland, so fair enough. But fucking bagpipes?

Our Bon, seen in the video either actually playing the pipes or miming it while the Rats of Tobruk pipe band do the job, is in familiar form. A call-and-response sequence between the pipers and Angus takes things to the next raucous level from 1:54 to 2:10.

Things slow down for but a moment at 2:36, and in comes Scott’s vocal again. The same rhythm chords and drums repeat as if on a loop.

“Gettin’ old

Gettin’ grey

Gettin’ ripped off

Underpaid

Gettin’ sold

Second hand

That’s how it goes

Playin’ in a band”

Yeah, it’s a jungle out there, alright. Still, it looks like a hell of a lot of fun though. Or maybe they have to work really hard to make it look this easy.

But just in case you’re not convinced, be aware that if “you wanna be a star of stage and screen, look out…it’s rough and mean”.

I think we get it by now. What happened to the bagpipes? Ah, there they are again at 4:13, punching a hole right through the groove and leading us out. But before you go, how about another minute of absolute power groove from these guys and a descending bassline at 4:52, just for good measure?

To conclude, I remember really getting into this song when they’d play it at the end of the second intermission at Canucks games in the early ’00s. Empty your bladder, fill it up again with one last beer for the 3rd period, and head back to your seats for a bit of Accadacca before things get going again.

Play it again. Merry Christmas, everyone.

If you have made it this far, it will occur to you that if this is #34 in this series, then there must be 33 previous ones. This is a correct assumption, and here I will link #33 and 32. At the bottom of 32, you find a link to #3`; at the bottom of it, you can — if you so choose — be taken to #30. This ingenious system that I thought up all by myself continues all the way to #1.

I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month, and if you use the link below, then I get a slice of that. I’m going to buy this record. Just as soon as I get a record player.