You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC

Once upon a time, Rock 'n Roll could simply be explained as a song that utilized a blues progression with sped up boogie-woogie bass line. In that form, pioneers like Little Richard showed us the attitude and the feel of rock. Then the electric guitar became a lead instrument with artists like Chuck Berry in the 1950s. The 1960s were a time of exploration and growth of rock utilizing classical instrument, expanding the form of songs and drawing from different genres to innovate the Rock genre of music.

As art evolves and becomes more complicated there are always artist who react to this by focusing on the core of the genre. After bands like the Beatles raised the bar of Rock music to high art, some musicians decided to get back to the basics. These groups went back to the original components of what rock was. They focused on feel instead of complexity, riffs instead of form and anthems instead of monologues. Rock had redefined itself and AC/DC was there to remind the world of the definition of Rock.

If you take Rock music and distill it down to its purest form, you are left with is AC/DC. You have the instrumentation defined by the Beatles with a drum set, bass guitar, two electric guitars (rhythm and lead) and the vocalist, nothing more, nothing less. There are no effects besides some distortion in the guitars, no additional instruments and no fancy studio tricks. Every instrument can clearly heard when it is plays throughout the song, while working together to create one of the finest examples of a Rock groove.

The basic rock drum beat has the bass drum on beat 1, followed by a snare drum hit on beat 2, two more bass drum hits on beat 3 followed by another snare drum hit on beat 4.,. What Phil Rudd, the drummer of AC/DC understands is that playing that pattern alone is not enough to drive the groove. Like a melody, each beat needs to lead somewhere and the drums in this song work towards beat 4. Rudd, drops the first bass drum hit on beat 3 which throws more momentum into beat 4, creating a feeling of motion. The extra weight on beat 4 is like a jump off of a diving board bringing energy into beat 1.

The drum’s emphasis on beat 4 brings out the most interesting rhythmic part of the guitar riff. The guitar riff plays every other measure but it starts after beat 4, right before beat 1. The drum hit on beat 4 that highlights this offbeat. The drums are steady and uncompromising while the guitar riff somehow feels relaxed This tension is exactly what creates the feel of this song The guitar riff and the drums create an attitude in the beginning, which through its simplicity somehow captures a sense of cool, filled with attitude, a slight snarl and a feeling of celebration.

When AC/DC’s lead singer Bon Scot died of alcohol poisoning many worried that AC/DC would never find a replacement. They hired Brian Johnson song and recorded Back In Black the album that featured “You Shook Me All Night Long” as a tribute to Scot. Johnson has ability to sing high with raspy and energetic tone. It’s not a pretty voice but it’s a very real voice. It’s how most guys sound after a little too much beer combined screaming at a football game for five hours, except Johnson manages to make that sound musical and meaningful. This voice is not meant to sing a long with, but rather scream along with, masculine, rugged, raw and unapologetic. A unique voice in Rock, Johnson’s voice is the perfect compliment to the hard-edge groove created by the drums and the guitars.

“You Shook Me All Night Long” is about the power of a woman’s sexuality as being almost too much for the narrator to handle. This is as much a teenage fantasy as a reflection on an actually experience. The metaphors are not especially deep reflecting a general feeling of masculinity and bravado more than a true reflection of a woman. What is interesting is that this song is not chauvinistic and it doesn’t objective the woman. Instead, but rather it is a celebration of the woman’s sexual prowess with a sense of thanksgiving and reverence.

The verses are organized with an AABA rhyming scheme and though the lyrics are not all entirely clear (what the heck are “sightless eyes” and how is that appealing?) the ends of the phrases slow down the accentuated certain lyrics. This brings out such fragments as:

-American thighs
- already there
-mine all mine
-come back for more
-take another swing

You may not know all of the lyrics but I’m sure you can make out those parts of the song giving you plenty to sing along. The best part is that these lines provide the basic meaning of the song.

My favorite memory of “You Shook Me All Night Long” is rocking out to this song during my junior year of college rocking out to this song at my fraternity’s formal dance. Rocking out is not much dancing, but head-banging, grooving, air guitar playing and screaming along with the lyrics. It’s about that feeling of being in a crowd and getting lost in the ecstasy of the music.

Though we may not find time in our lives to party ev-er-y day, it’s important for us to find moments to Rock ‘n Roll all night or at least once a day, maybe while driving to work.

Rock on.