The 1975 track Brian Johnson refuses to sing: “It’s a sacred song”
A lot of bands don’t know what to do when a crucial member of their group passes away; however, AC/DC were able to bounce back pretty quickly.
It was a devastating blow to the group when Bon Scott died. He had a personality which really carried AC/DC, and his vocals offered the perfect range to dance along to the blues rock-inspired sound of Malcolm and Angus Young. Scott took to the chaotic nature of rock ‘n’ roll a little bit too much, and unfortunately, it led to a serious deterioration in his health, which eventually led to his passing.
The band had already started working on their next record, Back In Black, when tragedy struck, and so, in a bid to mourn their friend and take their minds off the loss, they decided to finish the record. The result was some of their best and most emotionally charged music of all time that the band knew they needed to record, both for themselves and in honour of their fallen bandmate.
Brian Johnson was the perfect person to step in and take on the vocals, as Bon Scott had previously given him his seal of approval. When he had been on tour in the UK at one point, he wound up seeing Johnson perform and thought he was one of the best vocalists he’d ever laid both his eyes and ears on.
“Malcolm remembered that Bon had once toured in a band through England,” recalled Angus Young, “And he was telling this story of this maniac he saw on stage one night rolling around on the floor, screaming his head off. He said ‘It was the best singer I saw in a long time’, and that was the band, it was Brian.”
The thing that made Brian Johnson such a good replacement was the fact that he wasn’t a bad carbon copy but his very own kind of performer, with a totally different voice, yet one that could pretty easily complement AC/DC’s songs, past and present. When you go see them live, even in the modern age, they perform a mix of music from the band’s discography, which means tracks Brian Johnson wrote and those that Bon Scott originally put together.
However, there was one song from the band’s back catalogue that Johnson refused to sing. You often find that a lot of new singers in bands are unwilling to sing the songs of their predecessors, but usually, it’s because of pride. They don’t want to sing songs that they weren’t originally involved in making, because they don’t feel close enough connected to the song.
For instance, Sammy Hagar refused to sing songs that were originally written and recorded by David Lee Roth when he joined Van Halen, because he didn’t feel as though those songs were an accurate reflection of him as a singer. However, it was different for Johnson; he was happy to sing all of Bon Scott’s songs, apart from the band’s classic, ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)’, which he omitted from future setlists as a sign of respect rather than bitterness.
“I’m not doing that one. I can’t,” he declared emphatically, “That’s Bon’s song. That’s his epitaph. When I think of that song, I think of Bon. I see him with the bagpipes and the smile. And I can’t do it justice. It would be wrong. It would be like going into a church and shouting. It’s a sacred song for him, for the fans, for the band, and for me.”
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