The 1958 song Angus Young said defined rock music: “That’s great”
There aren’t many rock bands that stand by the ethos of what the genre stands for quite like AC/DC.
From day one, the Young brothers were a rock and roll band first and foremost, and for every record that they’ve ever released, they do exactly what it says on the tin and rarely have to leave their little bubble. It’s usually not a problem when the songs work this well, but the perfect definition of rock and roll for Angus Young came a few years earlier with the song ‘Johnny B Goode’.
When it comes to any rock and roll, though, Chuck Berry was the first and best at everything. Before The Beatles were even a twinkle in John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s eyes, Berry was taking the sounds of blues, jazz, and a ton of energy and paving the way for rock and roll with every song he wrote.
And as far as rock songs go, there aren’t many better at selling the idea of rock and roll than ‘Johnny B Goode’. For everyone who has ever picked up a guitar, the allure of playing guitar has always been the ability to ring a bell and take Berry-style leads whenever a guitar break happens is almost impossible to resist.
Part of what makes the track so enduring is its simplicity. There is no excess, no unnecessary flourish, just a tightly wound piece of music that delivers exactly what it promises. That economy of style became a blueprint for countless bands that followed, proving that you did not need to reinvent the wheel to make something powerful. Sometimes, it was enough to take a great idea and play it with conviction.
It also captured something aspirational in a way that few songs had managed before. The story at its centre was not grand or mythical, but grounded in the idea that anyone, regardless of background, could pick up a guitar and carve out their own path. That sense of possibility is baked into every note, and it is precisely what drew musicians like Young towards it, offering both inspiration and a clear direction to follow.
Despite being on the other side of the world in Australia, Young was hooked by what he heard, eventually telling Guitarist, “I like rock and always find a challenge in it. There’s one great thing that stands out on guitar to me, and that’s ‘Johnny B Goode’. For me, that’s the thing; that’s what it’s all about. If you can come up with something like that, that’s great.”
While the rest of the world took rock and roll into bold new territories, Young was pretty fine with the rules the genre had set in place. There were still ways to twist those three chords around to make them sound different, and AC/DC were about to spend the rest of their lives playing those blaring power chords until their fingers bled.
It’s not hard to see where Young got his moves from. Half of his lick library comes from Berry, and he even co-opts his signature duck walk, which he would use whenever he took to the stage. Once you start looking at the lyrics of every AC/DC song, there are actually a few more glaring similarities than you realise.
Especially during the Bon Scott era, no other band seemed to follow in Berry’s footsteps of writing about rock and roll. Since Led Zeppelin was writing about mythology and the prog rock boom was talking about becoming masters of all known planets, Scott’s lyric sheet was all about being in a rock and roll band, whether that was ‘Highway to Hell’ or ‘Let There Be Rock’.
When it works this well, why bother changing up the formula? Despite losing Scott and getting a second wind with Brian Johnson behind the mic, the best moments in AC/DC’s catalogue have been when Malcolm and Angus actually find that Chuck Berry magic, like the opening lick of ‘Thunderstruck’ or the signature groove of ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’. ‘Johnny B Goode’ is ground zero for rock and roll, but where AC/DC has taken it was about making the genre sound exciting again.
