When I was a kid and we were listening to Linda Ronstadt, The Eagles, Billy Joel, and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, bands like AC/DC scared me.
The 70's were the time when the whole "those guys worship the devil" notion really became popular. Or maybe it was well-known before that. Robert Johnson had sold his soul at the crossroads in the early 1900's, but it seemed like I was hearing this idea an awful lot in my youth. Led Zeppelin. Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne. They all worshiped the devil!
Though I didn't grow up in the Bible Belt, I had a pretty white-bread childhood. I lived in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. My dad was a successful urban developer. My mom stayed home with the kids. We were on the swim team in the summers, played soccer in the spring and fall, and went to church on Sundays. My parents rarely drank, and I certainly knew nothing of sex or drugs or anything controversial for that matter. So when we had a few wild teenagers blasting bands like AC/DC in the neighborhood, it was kind of shocking.
I can remember going into the records stores of the day. Yes, there used to be places that simply sold music! They're just a dream now, but you used to be able to go in and sift through the big 33' albums all neatly stacked in rows. Some of the cover art was so cool back then, like what you saw when you picked up anything by Rush, Yes, or Asia. But if you weren't careful, you might run into some darker, scarier stuff. Ozzy's "Blizzard of Oz" was simply creepy. "Bark at the Moon" was even worse. Iron Maiden's "Killers"?!? Is that axe dripping blood? Is that some kind of human sacrifice on Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy"? AC/DC has an album called "Highway to Hell"?!? Does the one guy have a hat with devil horns on it? Oh my God! People BUY this stuff? I thought "AC" stood for "Anti-Christ" and that "DC" must've meant "Death of Christ." I was totally creeped out. And the cover for "Dirty Deeds"? Why are those peoples' eyes blacked out? What does THAT mean? I bet if we played this backwards we'd hear the voice of Satan!!!
Of course now that I'm older, I realize that all of this is nonsense. Sure, Tipper Gore and the PMRC continued to preach this gospel well into the 80's, but all it did was sell more records and give a bunch of people quite a laugh. AC/DC was just a great rock band. If they were guilty of anything, it was being Australian!
"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" cracks me up. It's a song about killing people! Bon Scott, the deliciously howling original frontman of the group, sings to all of those folks who hate their bosses, their teachers, their spouses, etc and need to have them knocked off. "You got a lady and you want her gone," he asks. "For a fee," he goes on to advertise such possibilities as "Concrete shoes, Cyanide, TNT, Neckties, Contracts, and TNT." It's great tongue-in-cheek dark humor and Scott's delivery is flawless. He was the ideal man to offer such services, and his vocals sound just dastardly enough to make it all believable.
"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" is from the album of the same name. To hear the song, click on the icon in the widgest jukebox along the side of the blog.
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