(Edited to update WNEW link.)
So, how about that “Rock and Roll Part 2″?
If you’re the sort of person who reads this blog regularly, you probably know the song I’m referring to, although many people who know the song don’t know its real title. It’s more commonly known as “the ‘hey’ song,’ since that’s the only word in it. After its run as an actual radio hit, it became one of the most popular sports anthems in the world, played in stadiums everywhere, both in its original recorded form and by marching bands. It’s not always universally popular, though. Various colleges have banned it from time to time because of the obscene chants it inspires; the NFL ordered teams to stop playing the original recording of it in 2006 after Gary Glitter was busted for child molestation.
Glitter was a glam-rock superstar in the UK, but came nowhere near that level in the States, where glam never really caught on. He scored but two American hits (“Didn’t Know I Loved You Till I Saw You Rock and Roll” was the other), but in the UK he scored 11 straight Top 10 singles between 1972 and 1975; three reached Number One and five more reached Number Two. A couple of his songs became minor hits in cover versions by American artists: “I’m the Leader of the Gang” by Brownsville Station (1974) and “Do You Wanna Touch Me?” by Joan Jett (1982). So when he ran into legal trouble involving child porn and molestation (and did time both in Britain and Vietnam), it wasn’t nearly the story over here that it was in Britain.
The song originally known as “Rock and Roll” started as a jam and ran 15 minutes in its first recorded version. It was eventually edited down into a two-part single running about six minutes in all. It had some lyrics, but what it had most of all was a beat, one of the most primal beats ever committed to vinyl, the sort of thing that goes straight to the most primitive part of the brain. Glitter’s producer, his record label, and radio stations knew it, even if they didn’t articulate it: The lyrics in “Rock and Roll Part 1″ were superfluous; the beat was all anybody would ever want or need.
But here at The Hits Just Keep on Comin’, we are all about furthering the world’s musical education. And we’re guessing that for every person who knows “Rock and Roll Part 2,” there are hundreds who have never heard “Rock and Roll Part 1.” If you’re one of them, it’s time to fill that gap in your experience.
“Rock and Roll Part 1″/Gary Glitter (buy it here, on a pricey CD single that contains each part separately and the whole thing together, in case you think that’s something you need)
(Bell 45237, chart peak #7, September 9, 1972)
(At WNEW.com: This Week in Rock History, and this week’s Rock 101 on the history of explicit lyrics.
Filed under: Forgotten 45, Tracks
I first heard “Rock & Roll Part 2″ on KAAY/Little Rock on the late night show “Beaker Street.” That was back around 1975 or 1976.
Come to think of it, glam rock just didn’t do much at all in the U.S. T.Rex, The Sweet, the New York Dolls and even the glam version of David Bowie didn’t do much on the U.S. charts. We were too busy listening to Three Dog Night.