The 1975 classic AC/DC retired after the death of Bon Scott
While many people consider it to be a miracle that AC/DC were able to continue as a band after the passing of lead vocalist Bon Scott, all the band really had to do was find the right person who could fill his shoes by embodying everything that the rest of the Australian rockers stood for.
This wasn’t exactly an intricate or complex thing either. Since forming in 1973, the band had made their main prerogative clear, outlining the fact that the one thing that they stood for above all else was becoming a genuine quintessence of rock and roll. Not only were they determined to showcase the fact that they had it in them to fit the mould of the rock archetype, but they wanted to make it even more evident through writing songs that were explicitly about rock and roll.
The amount of songs that the band have written as an ode to rock, specifically with direct reference to the genre in the title, far surpasses what most of their contemporaries ever did, and while one might think of this as being somewhat on the nose or obvious, AC/DC managed to get away with doing it throughout their career through a cheeky wink and a nod.
However, as unserious as they may have seemed to people, the opening track from their international debut album, 1976’s High Voltage, was direct proof that they knew exactly how to deliver on their promise of no-nonsense rock and roll. ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll)’ is one of the greatest examples of a band introducing everything they stand for through the first song that people who bought their album would hear, and it immediately had many people around the world hooked.
Around the time of the album’s release, which had previously been issued as an Australasia-exclusive in 1975, the band would frequently perform their track in their live shows, something that they instantly gained recognition for, and one of its key features was the fact that frontman Scott would play the bagpipes as a tribute to his Scottish roots.
However, despite its instant impact in their set, it would eventually be featured more sparingly as they expanded their catalogue, with other songs of theirs becoming more common occurrences. Towards the end of the 1970s, it was very rare to hear ‘It’s a Long Way’ in an AC/DC set, and as the band entered the 1980s, it would be removed altogether.
The main reason for this was the fact that after Scott’s tragic passing in 1980, their newly-recruited frontman in Johnson would actively refuse to play the song as part of their revamped set. Given its strong association with Scott and his heritage, Johnson felt uncomfortable ever delivering it in the same poignant fashion as his predecessor. The band’s previous bassist, Mark Evans, who had appeared on the studio recording, later stated in an interview with Noise11 that “it had a lot to do with the bagpipes.”
Not only was it hard to justify doing the song without Scott playing the pipes, but the unwieldy instrument always required the rest of the band to detune their instruments to match the key that the bagpipes were in, which, given how simple the band used to try and keep things, was a huge inconvenience for them to go through every night.
AC/DC couldn’t change too much with Scott no longer in the band for fear of it becoming a completely different act, but there was no harm in dropping one song. Given that, it’s hardly a surprise that they’d choose to drop ‘It’s a Long Way’ from their set, both in honour of their late frontman, the unnecessary complications it presented, and their desire to move on into a new era under Johnson.
