“Saving grace”: The B-side that saved AC/DC
From beers with breakfast to trying to wake the Loch Ness Monster with an arsenal of fireworks, AC/DC have graciously personified rock ‘n’ roll both on and off the stage. They always have, and they always will. As Angus Young put it in 2020, when the group had been around for 47 years, “We’re a band that still makes rock music for teenagers”. They make no bones about that, either.
Why should they? Kids need rock ‘n’ roll exultation—can you imagine how pent-up and greasy you would’ve been without it? The Young brothers, who first formed the band, knew that from an early age. Angus is the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, and Malcolm was only two years older. So, they were often vying for attention, and attention was scarce among a family faced with bigger fish to fry than livewire juveniles.
The whole family began life in Cranhill, a working-class suburb of Glasgow. Unemployment ran rife, and life was tough. Their father worked several jobs, trying to scrape by before having the bright idea of shipping everyone over to the sunnier climes of Sydney, Australia. Even in the Southern Hemisphere, while they might have fared more favourably, they were still faced with the burden of fitting in. So, it was rock ‘n’ roll from back home that proved the perfect companion while they tried to make friends.
Therefore, in 1973, when Malcolm was facing an uncertain future at the age of 20, he decided to form a band. He had already been part of a group up in Newcastle, Australia, called The Velvet Underground (not that one), so he knew a few names he could call upon to complete his fledgling new group with his brother in tow. Along with Colin Burgess from the Masters Apprentices on drums, bass guitarist Larry Van Kriedt and vocalist Dave Evans, AC/DC were formed.
With Malcolm’s experience out on the road with the other Velvet Underground, he had garnered an appreciation of what the kids in Australia were gunning for. The country was practically in the midst of being built from scratch, so many teenagers were sprung straight into construction jobs, so when they clocked off, a few refreshing beers and a searing guitar riff offered a glowing beacon. However, the nation was also still largely conservative, and the radio stations didn’t quite have the same idea. Over on the AM dial, it was love song after love song.
This placed AC/DC in a tricky position. They toured relentlessly, but it was taking its toll with not much income forthcoming from anywhere but the odd far-flung dive bar. They couldn’t buy a hit. So, Evans even called it a day. ”We were doing so many shows – sometimes we were doing three shows a day – and I was not getting paid,” he bemoaned. With their working-class background hardly allowing them much of a financial buffer, the rest of the band were getting close to following suit when Bon Scott joined.
They decided to shun their sensibilities and chase down a hit. “On our first album, High Voltage, we did a love song called ‘Love Song‘. That was very different for us. I didn’t know if we were trying to parody love songs of the time,“ Angus Young told Vulture. With lyrics like ‘When you smile I see stars in the sky / When you smile I see sunrise’ and an almost yacht-rock sound, it stands out in AC/DC’s back catalogue like a vegan in a Guy Ritchie film.
The band hated it, “I remember thinking, ‘Who in their right mind would want this to go out?‘“ But they needed the breakthrough, and their producer convinced them it would surely get radio play. Irked but backed into a corner, they decided to unleash the soppy disc—the incongruous B-side and press release practically declaring the band’s stance on the single.
Fortunately, the times were steadily changing in Australia, and a few of the DJs had gotten wind of AC/DC. So, when ‘Love Song‘ was sent over, a hint of desperation was readily detectable. How could this be the same determined delinquents causing grumblings of greatness on the grapevine? Thankfully, they flipped the soppy record over and gave the B-side a whirl.
As Angus Young explained, ”All of the radio stations who had seen us live knew this was not who we were. So these stations started to flip the record over and play the other song, which was a cover of a blues standard called ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go.’ We actually scored a hit from the B-side! That was the one saving grace of the song.” The fact that it was a cover gave the song a degree of credibility, and it made it known to the few lingering purists that they could play in a more classical style, too. So, through a quirk of fate, Australia’s finest were finally underway as a commercial force.
Over 200 million record sales later, the band have never once doubted their sensibilities since. As Angus Young once joked, “I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”
