The Best Songs Ever Recorded By Anyone Ever: AC/DC's "Back In Black"
Two thousand and twenty two. One person tweets about how the number we lost to COVID last month could fill a Super Bowl Stadium. Another tweets that we lose stadiums of people all the time, so don’t get it twisted and stop making them feel bad about wanting to bug the waitress mask-free. Stuck with an applause-o-meter by the kings and queens of capitalism while they try to go back to a profitable “normal”, we debate what degree of pain around the mortality of ourselves, the people we love and the people we only read about online should be considered worthy of acknowledgment by corporations, customers and commentators. It’s psychotic and absurd.
And if I’m going to going to hear a psychotic, absurd take on the pain of death’s proximity, it’s gonna be AC/DC’s “Back In Black.” Bon Scott, the unconscionably charismatic brogan bouncer who led the group from Australian bars to the US Top 20 died on February 19, 1980 at the age of 33, officially due to “death by misadventure” after nodding off drunk or worse in the back of a Renault 5. As young as he was, his bandmates were even younger and totally shattered. As you may have learned from VH1, the Scott family made clear their son wouldn’t want his to death to cockblock their rise, and the group - led by guitarists Angus & Malcolm Young - decided to plug on.
But here’s the lunatic part. Scott died in February of 1980. Brian Johnson, the British singer AC/DC first learned about through Scott (he’d been very impressed by how Johnson sang through undiagnosed appendicitis on stage with the band Geordie), was invited to audition in March. His membership was announced on April Fool’s Day. A week later, he was off to Compass Point in the Bahamas, where producer Mutt Lange and the four survivors were waiting for The New Guy to help them make the follow-up to Highway To Hell. Out of respect for Scott - wouldn’t want to be tacky! - none of his lyrics were used. The album was done by May, and released at the end of July. All this happened less than six months after Scott’s sudden death had shattered everyone’s concept of life as they knew it.
“Hell’s Bells” kicks off the album proper, so this Side B leader is actually the second overt tribute to Scott on the album. And there’s a logic to it. “Hell’s Bells” begins with the ominous toll of church bells, a slow guitar riff leading to a trudge where Brian says “you may be young but you’re gonna die.” That’s the funeral. “Back In Black” is the wake. The real one, after the boys have finished hugging ‘rents and grannies over coffee and cookies.
First is the riff. How hard does it swing? Despite never being approved for interpolation, it’s was swiped by Rick Rubin and the Beasties’ for their long-lost “Rock Hard” single, used for a Nelly/Justin Timberlake radio-only remix, and got mashed up with Missy’s “Get Your Freak On” for one of The Rock’s first fight scenes. The Young brothers have always said “thanks, but no thanks” to rap producers (based on the Youtube clip, I'm pretty sure it's been removed from the Missy remix in The Rundown!), and rap producers have always checked with their lawyers to see what they could possibly still get away with. It’s just that good.
Back in black! I hit the sack! I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back!
Cool, but sometimes memorial services are months after someone dies. Don’t feel you have to
Yes, I’m let loose from the noose that’s kept me hanging about!
Wow, that’s loaded language. You don’t have to be ok right now. It’s ok to
I’m just looking at the sky ‘cuz it’s getting me high!
Great! That’s beautiful. Mindfulness is
Forget the hearse cuz I’ll never die!
No.
I got nine lives! Cat’s eyes! Abusing every one of them and running wild!
All right. I’m glad you understand the concept of self-abuse…
[*A diminutive guitarist dressed like a schoolboy plows into me from behind*]
I’m not going to quote the second verse, as I already closed the browser window. I don’t want to know exactly what Brian is saying, as the thrill is less about the words, and more about how they’re screamed even faster, even more intensely than he did the first. While Johnson’s bag of tricks got used up fast by the band, one trick is that - if compelled - he can put a little Steven Tyler high-speed hysterics in the music - something Bon Scott was way too chill to bother with. Oh, Bon would shriek, but he wouldn’t melodically drop an entire limerick in 10 seconds like Beantown’s no. 1 scarf enthusiast. Brian could get a little closer to that, at least when Dr. Mutt was behind the board, figuring out the chemical equation for hard rock multi-platinum. At their best, AC/DC mk 2 was capable of a little more musicality than AC/DC mk 1 - a precedent for Van Halen mk 2, but with blessedly less keyboard work. The breakdowns in "Back In Black" are staggering, swaggering evidence.
My mom passed away more than a decade ago, and I still struggle to comprehend the ways it changed me and the dynamic of my family. Experiences like that are impossible to fully process in the moment. Maybe ever. We have no choice but to do our best as we go along.
“You still have to live” is a bullshit perspective to bring to public safety policy. That’s a sphere where you’re being paid to not think like an overcompensating twenty-something heavy metal singer. But you do still have to live. “Back In Black” not just affirms that, but demands you embrace the truism or run for cover. While I don’t know if I should thank the management team for enabling its creation, I'm forever grateful the guys captured this vibe.