Explaining every Easter Egg in the Def Leppard song ‘Rocket’
When Def Leppard began work on Hysteria, there was no longer room for filler. With producer Mutt Lange on board as the unofficial sixth member of the band, Leppard went into the studio to create an album packed to the brim with hits, almost producing the rock and roll equivalent of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. While they might have tried their best to innovate their sound left, right and centre, one of the biggest songs was a tribute to their past.
As Joe Elliott was thinking of an idea for a song, he got drawn to one of the rhythms he heard from a local band he was listening to on his off days from the studio. Creating the main rhythm of the tune out of the rolling drum loop, Elliott used the word “rocket” as a placeholder before deciding on something bigger. He told Classic Albums: “As soon as hit ‘Rocket/Yeah’, it was like ‘it sounds that Lou Reed song ‘Satellite of Love'”.
The glam rock classic of Reed’s Transformer became the main lyric behind the chorus, with slamming guitar chords filling out the rest of the sound. Instead of writing the same typical glam rock love song, Elliott ran with the idea of song references, continuing, “OK, Lou Reed, ‘Satellite of Love’, 1972. Why don’t we just make the rest of the lyrics about songs from that time? That way, everyone our age can listen and be like, ‘How many song titles and artists can you name in one song?'”.
The rest of the song became about naming some of the biggest British acts from the past decade. Although the slightest treads tie the artists together, Elliott namechecks The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’, David Bowie’s ‘The Jean Genie’ and ‘Space Oddity’, Queen’s ‘Killer Queen’, Elton John’s ‘Bennie and The Jets’ and ‘Rocket Man’, and The Rolling Stones’ ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’.
Sampling songs of every one of their inspirations was just the beginning. During the song’s midsection, all the instruments fade away as the band have a field day with some of the samplers, incorporating bits and pieces of their songs into the final track. These tracks served as mini teasers for the rest of the material on the album, including the glossy vocal harmonies of ‘Love Bites’ being chopped up into different pieces and the chorus of the song ‘Gods of War’ being played in reverse.
For all of the major hair metal bands springing up in the wake of Leppard, the band were still indebted to the music that came before them. Even when thinking of riffs for their band, they were echoing their influences, like the guitar riff in ‘Hysteria’ reminiscent of the wistful guitar line of Pink Floyd’s ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’.
While the final session times made it one of the most expensive British records of all time, the results were undeniable, launching seven hit singles onto the charts propelled by the success of ‘Pour Some Sugar On Me’. Leppard had already experienced the rollercoaster ride of fame with Pyromania, but the madness was only beginning once they unleashed their magnum opus.
