Around 1977 Neil Young formed a band called The Ducks that included Jeff Blackburn. The band played for a $3 cover charge in the hip Santa Cruz club environment. "My, My, Hey, Hey (Out Of The Blue)" came out of this period and Jeff Blackburn received co-writing credits. This deals with the fleeting nature of fame and how hard it is to stay relevant as an artist. "Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay" is a '50s song by Danny and the Juniors. Young alludes to or mentions artists from the '50s (Danny), '60s (Elvis), and '70s (The Sex Pistols, specifically lead singer Johnny Rotten) to show that "Rock and roll will never die. This was the first track on 'Rust Never Sleeps'.

Hey, Hey, My, My

'Rust Never Sleeps' was a unique recording by Neil Young and Crazy Horse as it was an album of all new material mainly recorded live but post-produced with some studio overdubbing and most of the audience ambiance removed. This all resulted in a final product that feels at once intimate and intense. The album is half acoustic and half electric, opening and closing with different versions of the same song: "Hey Hey, My My".

Rust Never Sleeps, album

"My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)" was recorded live at the Boarding House in early 1978. On this track, rock and roll chameleon Neil Young single-handedly pays tribute to punk and foreshadows the grunge movement of the 1990s. The lyrics deal fairly directly with the brevity of life as well as the concept that underneath everyone’s veneer lays a decidedly more complex reality. Young also acknowledges the Sex Pistols’ front man with the rhetorical question “Is this the story of Johnny Rotten?”, adding “It’s better to burn out ‘cause rust never sleeps.”

Danny and The Juniors

The famous line "It's better to burn out than it is to rust" is often credited to Young's friend Jeff Blackburn. That line has become one of the most famous song lyrics of all time. Kurt Cobain's suicide note contained that line. When Young was asked by Time magazine in 2005 about the line and Cobain's death, he said: "The fact that he left the lyrics to my song right there with him when he killed himself left a profound feeling on me, but I don't think he was saying I have to kill myself because I don't want to fade away. I don't think he was interpreting the song in a negative way. It's a song about artistic survival, and I think he had a problem with the fact that he thought he was selling out, and he didn't know how to stop it. He was forced to do tours when he didn't want to, forced into all kinds of stuff."

The Ducks (Mosley,Craviotto,Blackburn,Young)

Cobain's death was an epiphany of a different sort, one that not only left the second punk movement in a state of emotional disarray, but turned the dark bravado of Young's lyric into the stuff of tragedy. It's no wonder, then, that the incident casts a shadow across Young's new album, 'Sleeps with Angels'. It isn't just that the title song addresses Cobain's suicide in much the same way that "My My, Hey Hey" deals with the end of the Sex Pistols; it's as if the whole album is haunted by the implications of that act.

Kurt Cobain, suicide letter

In the 1986 movie Highlander, the villain Kurgan quotes this song to people inside a church: "I have something to say! It's better burn out, than to fade away!" By this he means to glorify his ongoing perilous battle for immortality as opposed to living a normal humble life. This is quite an obvious metaphor for being a rock star.

Johnny Rotten

In the biography of Neil Young, "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough, Neil points out that this song came about when he was jamming with the band Devo. The phrase, "Rust never sleeps" was uttered by Mark Mothersbaugh, and Neil, loving the impromptu line, acquired it. Young explains why the phrase appealed to him: "It relates to my career; the longer I keep on going the more I have to fight this corrosion. And now that's gotten to be like the World Series for me. The competition's there, whether I will corrode and eventually not be able to move anymore and just repeat myself until further notice or whether I will be able to expand and keep the corrosion down a little."

Mark Mothersbaugh

In 1978 Young and Crazy Horse set out on the lengthy tour, where each concert was divided into Young’s solo acoustic set and the full band electric set. The real brilliance of 'Rust Never Slepps' lies on the electric side two. “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” is a dark hard-driving and distortion-laden bookend to the comparatively pastoral “Hey Hey, My My (Out Of The Blue)”. The lyrics are slightly different.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

The song explicitly deals with the struggles of being a rock musician. As quoted on Hyper Rust, Neil Young said, "the essence of the rock'n'roll spirit to me, is that it's better to burn out really bright than to sort of decay off into infinity. Even though if you look at it in a mature way, you'll think, 'well, yes ... you should decay off into infinity, and keep going along.' Rock'n'roll doesn't look that far ahead. Rock'n'roll is right now. What's happening right this second"

Neil Young

“Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” is the most popular song on the album and, in a lot of ways, Young’s signature song of his career. Critically acclaimed in its day and for years to come, 'Rust Never Sleeps' was also commercially successful, reaching the Top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2003, 'Rust Never Sleeps' was ranked number 351 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Rust Never Sleeps

My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)

My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It's better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.

Out of the blue and into the black
They give you this, but you pay for that
And once you're gone, you can never come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of a johnny rotten
It's better to burn out than it is to rust
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

Neil Young

Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.

Out of the blue and into the black
You pay for this, but they give you that
And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black.

The king is gone but he's not forgotten
This is the story of Johnny Rotten
It's better to burn out 'cause rust never sleeps
The king is gone but he's not forgotten.

Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye.

Battleme - Hey Hey, My My (Sons of Anarchy)

La Bamba is the story of 1950s rock 'n' roll rage Ritchie Valens, played herein with gusto and credibility by Lou Diamond Phillips. The film follows 17-year-old Ritchie as he strolls from one end of his California barrio to the other, guitar in hand. We meet Ritchie's colorful Mexican/American family, who react to his fame with varying degrees of pride and envy. And we meet the ladies in his life: his ambitious mother Connie Valenzuela (Rosana De Soto), his half-sister Rosie Morales (Elizabeth Pena), and blonde classmate Donna Ludwig (Danielle von Zerneck), who inspired Ritchie's first hit "Donna." Both this song and "La Bamba" are given con brio interpretations by Lou Diamond Philips and by the contemporary group Los Lobos, who appear in the film as the Tijuana band. The tragic coda of La Bamba is not unduly emphasized; this is a celebration of Ritchie Valens' life, not a eulogy.

La Bamba

"La Bamba" is a classic example of the son jarocho musical style, which originated in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The song also refers to a specific incident which occurred in the year 1683, in Veracruz, when pirates attacked the people, free and enslaved, living there. The Spanish officials mistreated the enslaves so horribly that they rebelled in what was known as the 'Bambarria', an enslave uprising that pitted the African enslaves and Indians against the Spanish.

La Bamba, 1987, poster

Most people never thought of “La Bamba” with an African/Black connection, but, it does have an African origin, and the song owes its creation to enslaved Africans. The song was originally a song sung by African slaves in Veracruz as they worked, since many of the enslaves brought to Mexico by the Spaniards, came from Angola and Congo, with the Africans who originated the song hailing from the MBamba peoples of Angola. Bamba is the name of an African tribe in Angola and in Congo, from the Bamba River. As enslaves, the MBamba peoples brought their beautiful culture with them, and the original origins of this song, over 500 years ago, and as so very often, with enslaved Africans in the new world, they fought against enslavement, running away and joining up with the indigenous peoples in the rain forests and mountainous areas.

Los Lobos sing La Bamba, 1987

Influenced by Afro-Mexican and Spanish flamenco rhythms, the song uses the violin, jaranas, guitar, and harp. Lyrics to the song vary greatly, as performers often improvise verses while performing. However, versions such as those by musical groups Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan and Los Pregoneros del Puerto have survived because of the artists' popularity. The traditional aspect of "La Bamba" lies in the tune, which remains almost the same through most versions.

El Mariachi

The song and dance was traditionally performed at weddings and in general it's thought to be a "love" dance. The bride and groom (or couple dancing it) perform intricate steps. The line 'arriba' (up) is most likely referring to the steps in which the knee is slightly lifted. Towards the end of the song they dance back and forth over a long red ribbon called a listón. At the very end, they tie the long ribbon into a love knot (a bow) using only their feet. Then they hold up their perfect bow to show everyone. It's a really beautiful dance.

La Bamba dance - Arriba

The most famous version worldwide is the one sung by Ritchie Valens in 1958. Valens was born Richard Valenzuela in Pacoima, California to Mexican-Indian parents. He didn't speak fluent Spanish, but could understand his mother and speak a fair Spanglish. Valens obtained the lyrics from his aunt Ernestine Reyes and learned the Spanish lyrics phonetically, as he had been raised from birth speaking English.

Ritchie Valens

Valens' "La Bamba" infused the traditional tune with a rock beat, making the song accessible to the population of the United States and earning it (and Valens) a place in rock history. The song features simple verse-chorus form. Valens' version was originally the B side to his first hit, "Donna." "La Bamba" entered the Top 40 two weeks before the 17-yearold died in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.

Donna/La Bamba, 1958

This song was only a modest hit when it was released in November 1958, but it became far more popular when the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba was released in 1987. The movie was a big deal because it was the first major, mainstream Hollywood film with a Hispanic subject. The movie was released in the United States in both Spanish and English versions, and Coca-Cola did a marketing tie-in targeting the Hispanic population in America - a population that would grow considerably in size and influence over the next several years.

Ritchie Valens

The Los Lobos version was the title track of the film La Bamba and reached No. 1 in the U.S. and UK singles charts in the same year and remained No. 1 for three weeks in the summer of 1987. Valens' version of La Bamba is ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is the only song on the list not sung in English. Ritchie Valens' tapping into a Mexican folk song unwittingly paved the way for “Twist and Shout” and all the other songs based on it since 1962.

Ritchie Valens - La Bamba, 1987

La Bamba by Ritchie Valens

Para bailar La Bamba
Para bailar La Bamba se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia
Pa' mi, pa' ti, ay arriba, ay arriba
Ay, arriba arriba
Por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti seré

Yo no soy marinero
Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán
Soy capitán, soy capitán
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba, bam

Para bailar La Bamba
Para bailar La Bamba
Se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia
Para mi, para ti, ay arriba, ay arriba

Para bailar La Bamba
Para bailar La Bamba
Se necesita una poca de gracia
Una poca de gracia
Pa' mi, pa' ti, ay arriba, ay arriba
Ay, arriba arriba
Por ti seré, por ti seré, por ti seré

Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba
Bamba, bamba

Los Pregoneros del Puerto sing La Bamba

English translation

To dance the Bamba,
to dance the Bamba,
one needs a bit of grace.
A bit of grace for me, for you,
now come on, come on,
now come on, come on,
for you I'll be, for you I'll be, for you I'll be.
 
I'm not a sailor,
I'm not a sailor, I'm a captain.
I'm a captain, I'm a captain.
Bamba, bamba,
bamba, bamba,
bamba, bamba, bam...
 
To dance the Bamba,
to dance the Bamba,
one needs a bit of grace.
A bit of grace for me, for you,
now come on, come on.
 
Rrrraa-ha-haa...
 
To dance the Bamba,
to dance the Bamba,
one needs a bit of grace.
A bit of grace for me, for you,
now come on, come on,
now come on, come on,
for you I'll be, for you I'll be, for you I'll be.
 
Bamba, bamba,
bamba, bamba,
bamba, bamba...

La Bamba dance - final

Tlen Huicani - La Bamba (Son Jarocho)

It has its critics, but "Fade to Black" is undoubtedly one of the most important songs in Metallica's history. Their first true ballad, it showed they were far too astute to box themselves in, creatively speaking, and churn out only pedal-to-the-metal thrashers. There's hardly a whiff of that here and, instead, this somber comment on suicide showcases James Hetfield's increasingly mature lyrics and Kirk Hammett's impressively tasteful guitar melodies. And perhaps more than any other song Metallica released in the 1980s, it pointed to the move to the mainstream that the band made beginning with its album ‘Metallica’ (aka ‘The Black Album’) in 1991.

Fade to Black

In 1984, Metallica was still far from being recognized (by most of the world, anyway) as a band that would change heavy metal and hard rock, but the band's ‘Ride the Lightning’ track "Fade to Black" became a concert favorite and one of the few Metallica tracks to get radio airplay in the mid- to late '80s. Its simple melody and subtle progression was unlike the band's typically multi-layered sound, and its imprisoned, smothered, and oppressed feel mirrored the rest of the ‘Ride the Lightning’ album.

‘Ride the Lightning’ album

James Hetfield commented on the song in a 1991 interview with Guitar World: “That song was a big step for us. It was pretty much our first ballad, so it was challenging and we knew it would freak people out. … I wrote the song at a friend’s house in New Jersey. I was pretty depressed at the time because our gear had just been stolen, and we had been thrown out of our manager’s house for breaking shit and drinking his liquor cabinet dry. It’s a suicide song, and we got a lot of flack for it, [as if] kids were killing themselves because of the song. But we also got hundreds and hundreds of letters from kids telling us how they related to the song and that it made them feel better.”

James Hetfield

The track's calm, matter-of-fact introduction and powerful, suicidal lyrics are chillingly realistic, and the song feels like a suicide. Its detached disposition soon swirls into not-quite-suppressed self-hate and rage, and at midpoint in the track, the tempo kicks in and a precisioned guitar riff gallops over boiling-over anger ("yesterday seems as though it never existed/death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye"); the song eventually (and appropriately) fades out.

Cliff Burton (bassist)

Lars Ulrich has revealed that when their first album ‘Kill 'Em All’ was finished, band was obsessed with the concept of death. All the live stapes from ‘Ride the Lightening’ deals with death of some form of death. In "Fade to Black", because of it's forceful interpretation of committing suicide, Metallica was accused of promoting death.

Lars Ulrich

“Fade To Black” follows a structure which Metallica would continue on further ballads which is the song is split into two parts: the first half is more like a melodic ballad while the second half is much more aggressive and generally dominated by guitar leads. Kirk Hammett: “We doubled the first solo, but it was harder to double the second solo in the middle because it was slow and there was a lot of space in it. Later I realized that I harmonized it in a weird way—in minor thirds, major thirds and fifths. For the extended solo at the end, I wasn’t sure what to play. We had been in Denmark for five or six months, and I was getting really homesick. We were also having problems with our management. Since it was a somber song, and we were all bummed out anyway, I thought of very depressing things while I did the solo, and it really helped.”

Kirk Hammett

Before "Fade to Black," most heavy metal/hard rock songs did not delve quite so far into the human psyche; songs dealt with death, but usually in a cartoonish, gothic, or mystical way. "Fade to Black" helped heavy metal gain some songwriting credibility, and Metallica continued this graphic, realistic imagery in songwriting on their subsequent songs and albums in the 1980s.

Fade to Black

Fade To Black lyrics

Life it seems will fade away.
Drifting further everyday.
Getting lost within myself.
Nothing matters, no one else.
I have lost the will to live.
Simply nothing more to give.
There is nothing more for me.
Need the end to set me free.

Things not what they used to be.
Missing one inside of me.
Deathly lost, this can't be real.
Cannot stand this hell I feel.
Emptiness is filling me
to the point of agony.
Growing darkness, taking dawn.
I was me, but now he's gone.

No one but me can save myself, but it's too late.
Now I can't think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed.
Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye.

Goodbye...

Metallica, 1984

Metallica - Fade To Black (Live at The VH1)

In a classic example of life imitating art — album cover art, to be precise — there were storm clouds brewing ominously on Deep Purple’s career horizon as the storied British hard rockers unveiled their ninth studio album, ‘Stormbringer,’ in November of 1974. Blackmore leaving to form Rainbow soon after its release. The main reason for Blackmore's departure were the overt funk influences brought to the band by new members David Coverdale and (especially) Glenn Hughes. The album closes with the incredible "Soldier of Fortune", a Coverdale/Blackmore penned composition, which is a soft, slow ballad (regarded by many as a Purple classic,) where Coverdale shows the full extent of his fabulous voice.

Soldier of Fortune

Deep Purple were formed in Hertford, England, in 1968, with an inaugural lineup that featured guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice. With their self-titled third LP, Deep Purple's ambitions grew the songs reflecting a new complexity and density as Lord's classically influenced keyboards assumed a much greater focus. Soon after the album's release, and with the dismissals of Evans and Simper, the band started fresh, recruiting singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover from the ranks of the pop group Episode Six.

Deep Purple 1968 - 1969

1970's ‘Deep Purple in Rock’ heralded the beginning of the group's most creatively and commercially successful period. At home, the album sold over a million copies, with the subsequent non-LP single "Black Night" falling just shy of topping the U.K. pop charts. Released in 1971, ‘Fireball’ was also a smash, scoring a hit with "Strange Kind of Woman." "Smoke on the Water" featured on the multi-platinum classic ‘Machine Head,’ reached the U.S. Top Five in mid-1972 and positioned Deep Purple among rock's elite.

Deep Purple 1969 - 1973

However, long-simmering creative differences between Blackmore and Gillan pushed the latter out of the group that same year, with Glover soon exiting as well. Singer David Coverdale and bassist/singer Glenn Hughes were recruited for 1974's ‘Burn,’ and Gillan meanwhile formed a band bearing his own name. ‘Burn’ and ‘Stormbringer’ both reached the Top 10, but Blackmore grew increasingly dissatisfied with the group's direction and in May 1975 left to form Rainbow with vocalist Ronnie James Dio.

Deep Purple 1973 - 1974

“Soldier of Fortune” is a memorable and stunning melancholic acoustic song with vocal perfectly matched by the weary and time-battered voice of David Coverdale and dramatic guitar play by Ritchie Blackmore, one of the most distinguished guitarist in history.

Ritchie Blackmore & Ronnie James Dio

In the Jerry Bloom biography, “Black Knight. Ritchie Blackmore,” former lead guitarist says of "Soldier Of Fortune" it is "one of my favorite songs. It's got a few of those mediaeval chords." This slow, sentimental ballad was co-written with new vocalist David Coverdale for the first album by ‘Deep Purple Mark Three.’ Unfortunately, the rest of the band didn't like the song, but Blackmore continued to play it after leaving the supergroup, including with Blackmore's Knight, where the soft feminine voice of Candice Night although obviously not as fitting as David Coverdale's, does not sound out of place.

Glenn Hughes & David Coverdale

Upon leaving Deep Purple, Coverdale formed Whitesnake. The green young singer from 1974 became a swashbuckling superstar, and even hired former Purple alumni Jon Lord (keys) and Ian Paice (drums). Meanwhile, Jon Lord also had a say on the song. He had retired from Deep Purple in 2002, and later he formed a group that toured the world with the Concerto for Group and Orchestra and some songs from his past with an added orchestral overtone. In 2009, he included “Soldier of Fortune” in the setlist. “I love this song, even though I didn’t write it”, said Jon.

Jon Lord

Though Deep Purple has never released the song as a single and it has never placed on the record charts, it has developed a cult following over the years, and cover versions have been released by Whitesnake, Opeth, Black Majesty.

Deep Purple - Stormbringer, 1974

Deep Purple - Soldier of Fortune, lyrics

I have often told you stories
About the way

I lived the life of a drifter
Waiting for the day
When I'd take your hand
And sing you songs
Then maybe you would say
Come lay with me love me
And I would surely stay

But I feel I'm growing older
And the songs that I have sung
Echo in the distance
Like the sound
Of a windmill goin' 'round
I guess I'll always be
A soldier of fortune

Many times I've been a traveller
I looked for something new
In days of old
When nights were cold
I wandered without you
But those days I thougt my eyes
Had seen you standing near
Though blindness is confusing
It shows that you're not here

Now I feel I'm growing older
And the songs that I have sung
Echo in the distance
Like the sound
Of a windmill goin' 'round
I guess I'll always be
A soldier of fortune
Yes, I can hear the sound
Of a windmill goin' 'round
I guess I'll always be
A soldier of fortune

Whitesnake play 'Soldier of Fortune' (acoustic)

The stereotype of the Troggs that is fixed in the minds of many listeners is that of the crude cavemen of "Wild Thing" fame. The Troggs did indeed offer lewd beat on that song and many others, but it mustn't be overlooked that they had a surprising facility for tender ballads. There is no better, and better known, example of that talent than "Love Is All Around," a Top Ten hit in 1968 (and their only big hit in the United States aside from "Wild Thing").

Love Is All Around

For the Troggs were a "three-trick pony". Their most famous genre was dirty, distorted, 'caveman' garage rock, and clearly that was the genre where they excelled at most, being born to do that kind of stuff: as subtle as your local brontosaurus poking his head through your window, as unprofessional as you yourself on your very first day of guitar playing, and occasionally, as catchy as your local national anthem. 'Wild Thing' was this genre's culmination, and though they never recorded anything as primal and ferocious, they occasionally came close - especially early on in their career.

The Troggs

Their second trick was bubblegum - in fact, bublegum and dirty garage rock do have a lot in common, don't you think? The simplicity, the shortness, the up-to-the-point vibe... overall, garage rock is just bubblegum done with speed, distortion, and roughness. So occasionally the Troggs just dump the roughness and distortion and stay with the bubblegum skeleton, and again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but in any case, it makes them legitimate predecessors of the Ramones... doncha think?

Love Is All Around

Finally, the last thing the Troggs were quite fond of were sappy ballads... yep. AC/DC these guys were not, and they regularly allowed themselves a bit of inner contradiction, with lead vocalist Reg Presley sounding like a sex-obsessed maniac on one song and then sounding as the International Romeo Contest Winner on the next one. This is, of course, an ungrateful genre, and while I've certainly heard a lot of balladry compared to which the Troggs were a collective bunch of Brian Wilsons, this doesn't mean I'd be the first person to recommend you to spend all your days listening to 'Love Is All Around', no sir.

The Troggs

Troggs lead singer Reg Presley wrote this in about 10 minutes. He was inspired by the Joy Strings Salvation Army band he'd seen on TV. Presley recalled the inspiration for the song in the July 2011 edition of Mojo magazine:

"I got back from America, I smelt the Sunday lunch cooking (inhales deeply), phaaaaw - after about 25 years on burgers - I kissed my wife, my little daughter, four years old. We went into the lounge and those Salvation Girls, The Joystrings, were on television, banging their tambourines and singing something, 'Love, love,' love.' I went over to turn it off, knelt down and hearing that 'Love, love' I got a bass line, (sings) 'doom, doomdoom, doomdoom, doomdoom, doom,' and I got: 'I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes. My wife, my kid… And so the feeling grows.'"

Reg Presley

The record opens with a gentle, playful, circular guitar riff, with little backup rhythm save a light metronome-like tick-tock. Reg Presley's vocals often blended a sardonic sense of camp with suppressed fury, but in this case they were, to all appearances, sincere in their loving tones, if witty in their images of feeling love through fingers and toes. The vocals, too, are either double-tracked or fattened by backup unison harmonies from the rest of the band. The constantly rising melody is simple but ingratiating, the basic guitars joined by tasteful strings in the latter verses. "Love Is All Around," in sum, is one of the loveliest flower-power ballads of the hippie era, working in no small part because it's understated.

Love Is All Around, single 1967

The song was first released as a single in the UK in October 1967, peaking at number 5. On the Hot 100, peaked at number 7 on 18 May 1968, was on the chart a total of 16 weeks, and ranked number 40 for all of 1968. On the UK Singles Chart Top 50, the record debuted at number 50 peaked at number 5 on 22 November 1967. In 1994 this became a huge hit when Wet Wet Wet covered it for the movie Four Weddings And A Funeral. Their version was UK #1 for 15 weeks and became the best selling single in the UK in 1994. R.E.M.'s cover was a B-side on their 1991 "Radio Song" single, and they also played it during their first appearance at MTV's Unplugged series that same year.

Wet Wet Wet - Love Is All Around, poster

The Troggs tempered their first image on subsequent ballads, which utilized a sort of pre-"power ballad" approach. These weren't bad, and a few of them were British hits, but they weren't as fine as the initial blast of singles which established the band's image. "Love Is All Around," which restored them to the American Top Ten in 1968, was their finest effort in this vein. It was also their final big hit on either side of the Atlantic.

Love Is All Around, Fontana Records 1967

Love Is All Around by Reg Presley

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes.
Well love is all around me, and so the feeling grows.
It´s written on the wind, it´s everywhere I go.
So if you really love me, come on and let it show.

You know I love you, I always will.
My mind's made up by the way that I feel,
There´s no beginning, there´ll be no end
Cause on my love you can depend.

I see your face before me as I lay on my bed
I kinda get to thinking, of all the things you said.
You gave your promise to me, and I gave mine to you.
I need someone beside me in everything I do.

You know I love you...........(etc)

It´s written on the wind..........(etc)

Come on and let it show
Come on and let it show
Come on and let it show

Love Is All Around

In a September 2012 interview with Mojo magazine The Kinks’ Ray Davies recounted the tale: “The funniest thing was when my publisher came to me on tour and said The Doors had used the riff for ‘All Day And All Of The Night’ for ‘Hello, I Love You.’ I said rather than sue them, can we just get them to own up? My publisher said, ‘They have, that’s why we should sue them!’ (laughs) Jim Morrison admitted it, which to me was the most important thing. The most important thing, actually, is to take (the idea) somewhere else.” (The UK courts ordered The Doors to pay royalties to The Kinks songwriters for borrowing their riff.)

All Day and All of the Night

Ray Davies wrote this song. He called it, "A neurotic song - youthful, obsessive and sexually possessive." Originally released in late 1964, ‘All Day and All of the Night’ was the follow-up to their first big hit, ‘You Really Got Me.’ The song took that signature choppy riff used on its predecessor, although this song's riff is slightly more complicated, incorporating a B Flat after the chords F and G. Otherwise, the recordings are similar in beat and structure, with similar background vocals, progressions, and guitar solos. ‘All Day’ was a No. 2 hit in England, one of 17 Top 40 singles the band would have in the ’60s. It fared very well stateside as well, clocking in at No. 7.

Ray Davies

The Kinks were formed in 1963 by two brothers, Ray and Dave Davies and at first were named the Ravens. Ray was the lead singer and sometimes played guitar, Dave was the lead guitarist. Ray's friend Peter Quaife join then and played bass and the drummer was Mickey Willett. The first song they recorded, Ray's "I Took My Baby Home" was sent to Pye Records in late '63 and they were signed to a contract in '64. Just before doing so, Willett was replaced by Mick Avory on drums. They recorded their first single, a cover of Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" and just before it's release renamed the group "the Kinks".

The Kinks, 1964

Although they weren't as boldly innovative as the Beatles or as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Who, the Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Like most bands of their era, the Kinks began as an R&B/blues outfit. Within four years, the band had become the most staunchly English of all their contemporaries, drawing heavily from British music hall and traditional pop, as well as incorporating elements of country, folk, and blues.

The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night, 1964

But for moptop-crazed America during the middle ’60s, the version of Cool Britannia presented by the Kinks was a bridge too far — a confusing mélange of roughnecked working-class rage and foppish, pansexual dandy-ism that was as unkempt as the group’s thrillingly rambunctious live shows. Following a disastrous 1965 tour, the Kinks were functionally banned (for unspecified reasons) from the US for the better part of a decade, robbing them of the untold spoils of their contemporaries and perhaps further inculcating the deep, proud provincialism that would come to define the best of Ray Davies’ writing.

The Kinks on Their Way To The USA, 1965

"All Day and All of the Night" was rock's first heavy metal song even though heavy metal was still a good five years from happening. Truth being, nobody really ever heard a guitar solo like the one Dave delivered on this song. Dave Davies claimed that the song was where he "found his voice," saying, "I liked the guitar sound on 'All Day And All Of The Night,' the second single we had. When they tried to develop amplifiers that had pre-gain and all, I thought it wasn't quite right, and I struggled with the sound for a while. I never liked Marshalls, because they sounded like everybody else. Then in the mid '70s I started using Peavey, and people said, "Nobody uses Peavey - country and western bands use them" [laughs]. I used to blow them up every night. I used two Peavey Maces together, and it was brilliant."

The Kinks, London 1964

”All Day And All Of The Night” stands on it’s own as a powerful two and a half minutes of raw, visceral, driving rock and roll. The sliding guitar chords are in fact slightly more complex than its predecessor, allowing for a bite more swing in the otherwise tough groove set down by drummer Mick Avery, who seems never to miss an opportunity to put multiple dents in his snare skin throughout the recording. The guitar sound seems even more distorted and nasty and Dave Davies’ anarchic solo no less manic while both tracks brilliantly raise tension by twisting key changes to the breaking point and releasing in a jubilant shout-a-long title lyric. With ”All Day And All Of The Night”, The Kinks seemed to have pulled off the rare feet of releasing back to back classics and at the same time launching a new rough and tumble sound that would help distortion become the signature guitar sound of rock and roll in the very near future.

The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night, Live on TV

The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night, lyrics

I'm not content to be with you in the daytime
Girl I want to be with you all of the time
The only time I feel alright is by your side
Girl I want to be with you all of the time

All day and all of the night
All day and all of the night
All day and all of the night

I believe that you and me last forever
Oh yeah, all day and nighttime yours, leave me never
The only time I feel alright is by your side
Girl I want to be with you all of the time

All day and all of the night
All day and all of the night
Oh, come on

I believe…

The Kinks - All Day and All of the Night, Pye 1964

No one predicted that “Back to the Future” would top the U.S. box office for 11 weeks, would go on to make more money than any other film in 1985, and would 30 years later be a major pop culture touchstone beloved by generations.

And Marty’s rendition of “Johnny B. Goode” at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance was perhaps the critical moment that cemented the movie’s place in film history. The 17-year-old hero, by this point, has won over the audience by being both totally cool and adorably dorky — and both sides of him are on display as he gets carried away playing the Chuck Berry’s rock and roll hit. It’s a scene packed with 1950s nostalgia, wink jokes, memorable one-liners, and a crowd-pleasing musical performance, and it supplied the feel good moment that solidified the film’s emotional hold over its audience, transcending it from mere time travel genre adventure to a beloved instant classic.

Johnny B. Goode

Once upon a time, rock'n'roll was an idiom that enabled young people from humble circumstances to escape poverty and make a name for themselves. This was before scions of the landed gentry, masquerading as outcasts, began forming bands like the Wallflowers and the Strokes, producing a brand of music best described as plutocrap: cute, but extraneous.

Michael Fox as Marty McFly

In the official version of events, supplied to Rolling Stone magazine by Berry himself, the song is autobiographical: A poor boy from a rustic corner of the Deep South with little education and few prospects masters the electric guitar and becomes the leader of a famous band. In fact, Berry was not from the Deep South; he grew up on Goode Avenue in Saint Louis, an unusually cosmopolitan Midwestern city with a rich musical tradition.

St. Louis, Goode Avenue

“The song had its birth when a [1955] tour first brought me to New Orleans, a place I’d longed to visit ever since hearing Muddy Waters’ lyrics, ‘Going down to Louisiana way behind the sun,’ ” writes Berry in his autobiography. “That inspiration, combined with little bits of dad’s stories and the thrill of seeing my black name posted all over town in one of the cities they brought the slaves through, turned into ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ ”

Chuck Berry

After naming the song’s protagonist Johnny after his keyboardist Johnnie Johnson, Berry wrote the lyrics in two weeks of “periodic application.” The repeated chorus calls of “Go Johnny Go” are a tribute to Berry’s mother’s constant encouragement, while other imagery was also inspired by his family. “I’d been told my great grandfather lived ‘way back up among the evergreens’ in a log cabin,’ ” Berry writes. “I revived that era with a story about a ‘colored boy name Johnny B. Goode’…but I thought that would seem biased to white fans...and changed it to ‘country boy.’ ”

Chuck Berry

“Johnny B Goode” was produced by Leonard and Phil Chess, founders of Chicago's celebrated Chess Records. Berry was introduced to the Chess brothers by blues legend Muddy Waters, who, according to one apocryphal tale, was busy painting the walls of the recording studio when a very young Mick Jagger popped by for a visit.

Johnny B. Goode, singel 1958

The opening guitar riff on "Johnny B. Goode" is essentially a note-for-note copy of the opening single-note solo on Louis Jordan's "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" (1946), played by guitarist Carl Hogan. Neither the guitar intro nor the solo are played at once. Chuck Berry played the introducing parts together with the rhythm guitar and overdubbed later the missing solo runs.

Chuck Berry

The single was recorded on December 29 or 30, 1957, with Berry backed by a lean, swinging blues trio of Willie Dixon (bass), Lafayette Leake (piano) and Fred Below (drums). The same session also yielded “Reelin’ and Rockin’ ” and “Sweet Little Sixteen.”

Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode

"Johnny B. Goode" was the first rock & roll hit about rock & roll stardom. It is still the greatest rock & roll song about the democracy of fame in pop music. As Billy Altman notes in his liner notes to The Chuck Berry Box (MCA), the song has become so ingrained in American culture that it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. And, thanks to the late astronomer Carl Sagan, the whole universe may know the tune by now; it was hauled off on the Voyager 1 space probe, hurtling past Jupiter and Saturn and toward Neptune, some four-billion miles away.

John Lennon & Chuck Berry sing Johnny B. Goode

"Johnny B. Goode" is the supreme example of Berry's poetry in motion. The rhythm section rolls with freight-train momentum, while Berry's stabbing, single-note lick in the chorus sounds, as he put it, "like a-ringin' a bell" — a perfect description of how rock & roll guitar can make you feel on top of the world.

Chuck Berry

Johnny B. Goode lyrics

Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like a ringing a bell

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track
Oh, the engineers would see him sitting in the shade
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made
People passing by they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

His mother told him "Someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight."

Go go
Go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go go go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode

Chuck Berry

"[This song] was a riff, originally, a great riff to play, and whenever we played it live, it goes down great. We'd play it on two guitars, and people saw it later as a kind of John pastiche, as Lennon-ish, Lennon-esque. Which I don't mind. That could have been a Beatles song. Me and John would have sung that good." (Paul McCartney, 2001)

Let Me Roll It

"Let Me Roll It" is a song by Paul McCartney & Wings, and was released on the 1973 album ‘Band on the Run.’ The song was also released as the B-side to "Jet" in early 1974. It was interpreted by many as an echo of the stripped-down production of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album and Lennon's single ‘Cold Turkey.’ “ I still don't think it sounds like him [John Lennon], but that's your opinion. I can dig it if it sounds that way to you.” -Paul McCartney

Band On The Run, album

“Let Me Roll It” was written by McCartney at High Park Farm in Scotland. Although the song's similarities to Lennon's debut solo album were said to be coincidental, the use of echo, heavy bass and stinging lead guitar made such comparisons inevitable. “Let Me Roll It was not really a Lennon pastiche, although my use of tape echo did sound more like John than me. But tape echo was not John's exclusive territory! And you have to remember that, despite the myth, there was a lot of commonality between us in the way that we thought and the way that we worked.” -Paul McCartney, Club Sandwich.

Paul McCartney & Wings, 1974-1975

Many have interpreted this song as an olive branch offering to John Lennon after all the bitterness arising from his Beatles breakup song, "How Do You Sleep?." However, in an interview with Clash magazine in 2010 McCartney explained this was more of a drugs song. Said Macca: "'Let Me Roll It' wasn't to John, it was just in the style that we did with The Beatles that John was particularly known for. It was really actually the use of the echo. It was one of those: 'You're not going to use echo just cos John used it?' I don't think so. To tell you the truth, that was more [about] rolling a joint. That was the double meaning there: 'let me roll it to you.' That was more at the back of mind than anything else. 'Dear Friend,' that was very much 'let's be friends' to John."

Paul & John. Tour z Wings 1976

The titular phrase was, like the central refrain of the song ‘Band On The Run,’ inspired by a quotation by George Harrison. "Let me roll it to you" was a line in “I'd Have You Anytime,” the opening track on his 1970 album ‘All Things Must Pass.’

Paul McCartney sings Let Me Roll It

It’s a straightforward song lyrically—there are only nine total lines—but it remains one of a favorite vocals from solo McCartney, perhaps because it harkens back to the best Beatles era, circa ‘The White Album/Abbey Road.’ McCartney’s growling vocal, the general chord progression, and doo-wop feel on “Let Me Roll It” sounds so much like those from Abbey Road’s “Oh! Darling,” that he’s been accused more than once of trying to encode the song with messages about his relationship with the other Beatles, particularly John Lennon.

Jet, single 1974

But when he was asked about this album a few years ago, McCartney revealed that although the use of echo could perhaps be tied back to Lennon, the song itself was less a message to his former bandmate than it was an allusion to rolling a joint. In the ’70s McCartney was fond of marijuana, and he had a string of cannabis-related arrests throughout the decade.

Fiona Apple sings Let Me Roll It

"Let Me Roll It" was regularly performed live by Wings in their 1975-76 concerts, and returned to McCartney's setlist from his 1993 world tour onwards. It has frequently appeared in concert recordings.

On World Tour 1993

Paul McCartney - Let me roll it, lyrics

You gave me something I understand, you gave me loving in the palm of my hand.
I can't tell you how I feel, my heart is like a wheel,
let me roll it, let me roll it to you, let me roll it, let me roll it to you.

I wanna tell you, and now's the time, I wanna tell you that you're going to be mine.
I can't tell you how I feel, my heart is like a wheel,
let me roll it, let me roll it to you, let me roll it, let me roll it to you.

I can't tell you how I feel, my heart is like a wheel,
let me roll it, let me roll it to you, let me roll it, let me roll it to you.

You gave me something I understand, you gave me loving in the palm of my hand.
I can't tell you how I feel, my heart is like a wheel,
let me roll it, let me roll it to you, let me roll it, let me roll it to you.

Let Me Roll It

Christmas is the most magical time of year.

Let’s share the magic with each other 

this entire season and in the new year.

"And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings."
- William Shakespeare, King Richard II

Epitaph

The In the Court of the Crimson King album is generally viewed as one of the first works to truly embody the progressive rock genre, where King Crimson largely departed from the blues influences that rock music had been founded upon and mixed together jazz and classical symphonic elements. Epitaph is a microcosm of the album. Like the album, Epitaph travels through time, though the album travels in one direction (future to past), while the song travels in the other direction (past to future). This is one way in which Epitaph is a reflection of the album as a whole. Beginning in the past tense, by referring to the walls on which the prophets wrote, Epitaph continues in the present tense, and concludes in the future tense with "I fear tomorrow I'll be crying".

In the Court of the Crimson King

The song music written by King Crimson (Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, Michael Giles, Robert Fripp) but lyrics written by Peter Sinfield. Sinfield, poet and songwriter, sometimes wrote visionary lyrics that at the end of the '60s were common in bands like King Crimson who were doing progressive rock. LSD was trendy and many songwriters went through it, some more than others. Sinfield is apocalyptical in his writings, just like many other artists who were also seeing gurus. People had a deep curiosity and the mind had just been discovered and marketed: "The only way out is inside" said Timothy Leary. Vietnam was still on, there was an inner war in society, a big generation gap. Fear was in the air sometimes too. So take mind-expanding drugs, the growing power of the media, revolved and curious minds, gurus talking about how bad our society was doing, etc. and it reflects on many lyricist works, Sinfield as well.

King Crimson, 1969

Ian McDonald, Michael Giles, Peter Sinfield, Greg Lake, Robert Fripp

This song title as well as the lyrics of this song refer to the message that is displayed on a gravestone. In this song, the singer is facing a struggle and fears that his epitaph will be "confusion." Greg Lake, explained: "'Epitaph' is basically a song about looking with confusion upon a world gone mad. King Crimson had a strange ability to write about the future in an extremely prophetic way and the messages this song contains are even more relative today than they were when the song was originally written."

Gregg Lake

At that time, nearly all the British bands were using the blues or soul music – American music – as their influence. King Crimson had added a conceptual expansiveness more associated with classical. Robert Fripp says this unique mixture came to him in pieces – he’d worked at a hotel, for instance, where the sounds of a dance orchestra echoed through the halls – and then, almost all at once, when he by chance heard the colossal ending the Beatles‘ “A Day in the Life” on Radio Luxembourg. “It was terrifying; I had no idea what it was,” told Perfect Sound Forever. “Then it kept going. Then, there was this enormous whine note of strings. Then there was this a colossal piano chord. I discovered later that I’d come in half-way through Sgt. Pepper … My life was never the same again.”

Robert Fripp

Fripp started making connections between things like Jimi Hendrix and Bartok string quartets. “My experience was of the same musicians speaking to me in different dialects – one musician speaking in different voices,” he added. And with drummer Michael Giles, McDonald, lyricist Peter Sinfield and – in particular, it seemed – Greg Lake, Fripp had found a group of collaborators who were hearing it, too. The result, Fripp said, was simply magical. “As I heard it expressed later and even now, it was as if the music took over and took the musicians into its confidence”.

Ian McDonald

“Epitaph” begins with a dramatic drum roll and pseudo-orchestral sweep of somber melody. This gives way to a rather folky verse -- many prog rockers used folk-rockish structures as the backbone of some of their material -- in which the singer records rather gloomy images of nightmares, death, and decay, accented by doom truck drum thumps. The singing becomes more passionate on the following verses, leaping a whole octave upward, as the vague poetic words continue to evoke dark places where nothing is known and threat is looming. This leads up to a more dramatic chorus in which the words are punctuated by more spacious pauses and brief dabs of notes before concluding on a more thunderous, apocalyptic note, expressing the singer's fear that things aren't going to turn out all that well. Cheerful stuff indeed, but the tune is pretty attractive.

Peter Sinfield

The arrangement is good too, with Robert Fripp's guitar undulating like a weeping willow and Ian McDonald's Mellotron adding a layer of fear. An extended instrumental break finds the reeds and woodwinds playing off particularly gloomy guitar chords, the stop-and-start beats and frequent beats mirroring the oncoming crawl of a grim reaper. The extended fadeout on the last part of the chorus pushes the Mellotron up front to seal the spooky, desolate atmosphere.

Michael Giles

In 1976, "Epitaph" was released as a single with "21st Century Schizoid Man" as the B-side, a companion to the compilation “A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson.” “In the Court of the Crimson King” remains the group’s best-selling U.S. album and second-highest charting U.K. release. “There was a sort of underground cult following, which came from nowhere and grew and grew,” Giles told Aymeric Leroy. “It was quite surprising to us all, because all of us had spent probably the previous five to 10 years without it. So, it was quite overwhelming – overwhelming and humbling.”

Epitaph, single 1976

King Crimson – Epitaph, lyrics

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown.
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying
Crying..
Crying...
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying
Crying...

Epitaph