‘Bad to the Bone’: The Rolling Stones anthem that inspired George Thorogood’s breakthrough 1982 hit
As much as rock and roll has evolved from the comparatively primitive days of the early 1960s, so much of that abrasive, guitar-fuelled rebellion is still indebted to the iconic efforts of The Rolling Stones. In the case of George Thorogood’s 1982 classic, The Stones were such a touchstone that he feared plagiarism.
For much of the 1970s, George Thorogood was a relatively unknown name, resigning himself to playing interpretations of blues standards and evoking the kind of blues rock stylings that had been around for decades at that point. While an inarguably talented guitarist and performer, there wasn’t much within his early work to really get excited about. Audiences had heard it all before, and Thorogood simply didn’t stand out enough to make a mainstream impact.
Nevertheless, in 1981, the Delaware-born guitarist was given a golden gig, recruited to support The Rolling Stones on their American tour, promoting Tattoo You. Not only did that tour give the guitarist a chance to hone his stage craft in front of colossal audiences, as well as rub shoulders with the biggest rock band on the planet, but it also spurred an epiphany that soon led him to his defining sound.
“I did those gigs with The Stones,” the guitarist once recalled to Classic Rock, “and I noticed that every time they went into the opening of ‘Start Me Up’ – it’s a very brief opening, and there’s a pause – the response from the audience was just over-the-top.”
So, the way forward was simple: write an impactful rock anthem to rival ‘Start Me Up’; a rather tall order for a musician whose discography up to that point didn’t boast much in the way of crowd pleasers.
Nevertheless, Thorogood was determined, explaining, “I said to myself: ‘Georgie, you gotta come up with a song, kid. You gotta write something that gets that response when you go into it’… Because if I don’t, then ten years from now people are gonna say: ‘Do you remember a guy called George Thorogood?’ and most of ’em are gonna say: ‘Oh yeah. Wasn’t he good at playing Chuck Berry covers?’”
From that impassioned writing session, Thorogood struck upon ‘Bad To The Bone’, a classic, if somewhat satirical, blues rock anthem that immediately evokes images of middle-aged Harley Davidson riders and faux leather.
It was clear from the get-go that the song was bound for success, and it did become a definite stand-out in the discography of George Thorogood and the Destroyers, but the songwriter was more than a little worried about potential plagiarism.
Given that it was The Rolling Stones who had first inspired the track, Thorogood feared he may have inadvertently copied an old Keith Richards riff, or re-planted a Bo Diddley track lodged deep in his subconscious. “We actually took it to a musicologist,” he explained, “because we didn’t want to get sued and I didn’t want to blatantly rip someone off… I was trying to get it to be something that nobody had heard before, but for it to still remind you of stuff.”
It is fair to say that he achieved those aims, with the 1982 single evoking a blues rock styling of decades previous, making it a staple of classic rock radio before it was old enough to truly be considered a ‘classic’. Such is the power of The Rolling Stones that they can create classic rock anthems without even intending to.
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