Who originally sang ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’?
By the time Joan Jett struck out on her own, there was still a lot hanging in the air for her. The Runaways had practically imploded, but there was no way that someone with that much attitude would be forgotten as soon as the chords to ‘Cherry Bomb’ faded. She was bound to be a rock and roll star, and while ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’ was far from her first hit, it’s still the one that made the most sense with her aesthetic.
Because looking at the entire song, there aren’t many tracks that say it all for the genre other than Jett’s classic. There are tunes like Argent’s ‘God Gave Rock and Roll To You’ and some of the greatest tunes Chuck Berry ever wrote, but in terms of someone listening to rock and roll, Jett also gave us the kind of performance that most people needed to hear, clad in her leather jacket and willing to kick ass and take names wherever she saw fit.
Then again, it’s easy to ignore the fact that a lot of Jett’s best songs are covers. ‘Do You Want To Touch Me’ was already a cover of an old Gary Glitter tune, and if it hadn’t been for Tommy James and the Shondells, we would never have heard those opening chord stabs that open up ‘Crimson and Clover’. And it’s no exception when it comes to Jett’s biggest hit, either.
Before she had even left the Runaways, Arrows had already cut their own version of the tune, only for Jett to take over their version. While anyone would feel a bit cheated seeing someone take their song and mess around with it like Jett did, it’s important to realise the kind of band Arrows was before their song got the denim and leather treatment.
So, who originally sang ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’?
Listening to the initial version of the song, Arrows fit pretty snuggly in the world of glam rock. As much as their tune embodies everything that rock and roll is supposed to be, there are pieces that could have passed for a decent version of a T Rex song that Marc Bolan didn’t manage to get to yet. But when listening to the track, something is missing, and that came in when Jett put some real delivery behind it.
Bassist Alan Merrill doesn’t have the worst voice in the world, but Jett had already been through enough rock and roll songs to sing this track like the back of her hand. Even if Merrill was the one who wrote the line, you believe it when Jett is singing it, albeit with a few questionable lines about meeting someone at a bar and saying explicitly that this supposed love interest of hers is only 17.
Still, that doesn’t diminish what the song is about. Jett already had hits like ‘Bad Reputation’ under her belt, and even if there were some problems she ran into getting her record off the ground, there wasn’t a single soul on Earth who didn’t watch the iconic black-and-white music video and immediately fall in love with that guitar line when it blared out of the speakers.
And while tracks like ‘I Hate Myself For Loving You’ did end up having a major impact on Jett’s career after the fact, Arrows is still the reason why she became so synonymous with the genre. A band like Boston may have made a bunch of songs about how much they love the power of rock and roll, but ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ is that feeling distilled into song form.
