![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan9.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride4.jpg)
Grit, edge, and balls
Louder Sound teases Gillan’s interview appearing in the current (#337) issue of the Classic Rock magazine. The interview largely deals with Gillan the band years, and the teaser is the story that most of us have heard before — of Blackmore trying to recruit Gillan to sing for Rainbow.
The reason I had left Deep Purple was that they were moving into a kind of territory [later filled by Rainbow]. I didn’t want that. I wanted a group with grit, excitement and edge. Also one that had balls. That’s no reflection on Ritchie, who was a fantastic, amazing guitar player – in fact I said: ‘You can come and play in my band if you want’ – but Ritchie has firm ideas about how things should be, and there were things that we disagreed on.
Read more in Louder Sound.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
At least it seems they weren’t enemies:
“That’s no reflection on Ritchie, who was a fantastic, amazing guitar player – in fact I said: ‘You can come and play in my band if you want’“
like someone liked them to be! They were actually grownups 😉
February 10th, 2025 at 06:56The whole idea of them working together in 1979 is pie in the skies: IG wouldn‘t have sung something like Since You’ve Been Gone or I Surrender, Blackmore‘s whole AOR concept would have floundered. Nor could he have contained Ian, and Rainbow was at all times a dictatorship. By the same token, Blackmore wouldn’t have played in anybody else‘s band much less together with a bassist who was overweight and bald.
And Ian joining Rainbow in 1979 would have meant Ritchie, Roger and Ian being back together – basically the songwriting team of Mk II – how long could that band have lasted before morphing into a complete Mk II reunion? Public, media, record company and managerial pressure for that to happen would have been inescapable. There would have been no Rainbow with Ian and no GILLAN with Ritchie, only a DP reunion a couple of years earlier, but would have 1979 been the right time for such a reunion to last and be as (or even more) successful than the 1984 one? NWOBHM hadn‘t even happened yet, would a 1979 reunified DP been the right band to set it off as returning heroes from the past?
February 10th, 2025 at 10:33Glad Ian didn’t join Rainbow that would be strange and i don’t think that would last long.
February 10th, 2025 at 13:08That’s Gillan’s recollection of a conversation in 1978! I think it’s safe to say that the relationship deteriorated somewhat after that!
February 10th, 2025 at 15:42Yeah..grownups that lasted an evening… but hey.. thats better than nothing LOL!!
February 10th, 2025 at 16:32the story goes they got pretty drunk that night at Gillans house..maybe they should always stay drunk when they meet each other..
@5
😄😄
Well grownups drinking, never seen that before…
February 10th, 2025 at 18:34A least if the so called myth of 1979 had occurred, rocking Rod wouldn’t have been able to do the 1980 scam. One way of looking at the total hodge hodge of a 1979 DP ‘reunion. Cheers.
February 10th, 2025 at 21:17I believe the core issue between Ritchie and Ian is that they have simply long ago lost any patience with each other – like an estranged marriage. Anything the other guy does, inadvertently or not, is always weighed down with this huge package of history they share with all perceived injustices and injuries they have inflicted on each other. With two people just waiting to be set off by the other guy like that, it becomes impossible to survive the touring routine.
A lot of the more eccentric GILLAN stuff, Blackmore would have flat-out refused to play. And it would have taken one comment from him in the studio along the lines of “Can’t you sing this a bit like Lou Gramm would, Ian?” for Gillan to pack up his bags and go.
I mean just look where their music was going: Ritchie’s next album was Down To Earth with Graham Bonnet, Ian’s on the other hand Mr Universe (which didn’t sound quite as outlandish as the Japanese Album recorded with Steve Byrd in the summer of 78, but still outlandish enough).
Frankly, I think that in 1978/79 a reunion between Ritchie and DC (had they been able to forget about their silly physical altercation) would have promised more longevity than one between Blackers and IG. David’s concepts for WS weren’t that different to Ritchie’s for Rainbow, especially with their view to the all-important American market (which IG preferred to ignore – it cost him dearly). And they both share(d) conservative music tastes while Ian likes to work off the beaten path. If in 1983 you had played Rainbow’s Bent Out Of Shape, Whitesnake’s Slide It In and Black Sabbath’s Born Again to any rock fan, which one would (s)he have qualified as “strange & surprising” and which ones as “more or less the expected”? 😂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqUx84-ljPE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_PNCZ2gwY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_svZmiGWw
February 10th, 2025 at 21:52@8 Slide It In would be the most backward of the three. Slow lazy rock pretending to be heavy and pretending to be blues. But when it comes to the other two, Born Again definitely wins in the ‘strange’ department, but BOOS holds its own quite well in the ‘surprising’ department. Compared to its no-frills commercial hard rock predecessor, it definitely sounds quite artistic and exploratory, at least for Blackmore.
February 11th, 2025 at 07:34@ 9 – yes I do like Bent Out Of Shape also. It has two wonderful instrumentals on it, so it gets into my good album list just because of that. There are a few cracking AOR type songs on it too, a very well recorded album. I rate it higher than Straight Between The Eyes. Cheers.
February 11th, 2025 at 10:29“Slow lazy rock pretending to be heavy and pretending to be blues.”
Ouch! 😁 But actually quite apt a description. To me it’s the weakest Whitesnake album up to this point, neither here nor there in musical direction, 1987 at least knew what it wanted to be and did that well.
Among the JoLT-sung Rainbow albums, BOOS is my favorite and yes, there are three songs on it that break away from the AOR mold, namely Fire Dance and the two instrumentals, it has an air of sophistication to it. And Stranded is likely my favorite song from the final Rainbow era, drawing-by-numbers Foreigner as it is (that number could have been on Foreigner’s third album Head Games). But overall it is still firmly a conservative record, Foreigner’s debut featured a more proggie number (‘Starrider’) too, but it was still an album conceived for the AOR market. I sometimes wonder – had it become a hit and moved into the US Billboard Album Top Twenty, would we have still seen a DP reunion? I doubt it, Ritchie’s ego and competitive side would have been lit again.
February 11th, 2025 at 13:51Re BOOS, the Hipgnosis/Storm Thorgersen sleeve design of course also beckons the question whether the image of a woman stepping out of a door morphing into a vulva
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51h1gHJCYFL.jpg
was the brightest packaging idea for a US commercial breakthrough. 😁 As if Whitesnake’s biologically inaccurate vagina mouth reptile on Come An’ Get It
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/ComeAnGetIt.jpg
hadn’t been risque enough already for American prudishness. It was censored away on Yank releases.
https://i.discogs.com/prn9QoPxj_oR4M2Gon1X6lFpcy3l1ki-Vt2Y4M-sTXM/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:579/w:573/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTg0OTUz/NTAtMTUyNDA2MzE5/OS05NTI1LmpwZWc.jpeg
February 11th, 2025 at 15:56That meeting at Christmas 1978 ..when Ritchie came to Ian with an alleged offer to join Rainbow. The next year was even though there was no DP reunion (it’s funny that Ian Gillan sings in Ritchie’s band…like Plant sings in Page’s or Ozzy’s in Tony’s band and that band is not called LZ or BS !!!???)
February 12th, 2025 at 08:59The next year (1979) is big for DP fans, Gillan returned to hard rock with the album Mr Unverse. The most atmospheric DP, his voice and singing, the sound of keyboards (piano) as an equal partner to the guitar (Colin Towns-Jon Lord). ballad “Fighting Man” musically similar to Stairway to Heaven” but because of the final screams it has an allusion to Child in Time. Ian Gillan With the arrival of Mick Underwood (good old school drummer) and the rebellious Bernie Torma, he assembled a great band, re-recorded some songs from The Japanese Album and added great themes like “She Tears Me Down, Roller,” Mr. Universe”, “Message in a Bottle”, “Puget Sound”. Mr Universe is a good album. Ian Gillan is back.
On the other hand, Ritchie recorded the best Rainbow album in my opinion and had the best line-up. To me, who lived behind the Iron Curtain, completely unknown musicians Graham Bonnet and Don Airey ????? were a great support to the big three – Ritchie-Roger-Cozy. Graham added new energy, an excellent singer (Bruce Dickinson before Bruce Dickinson) and Don was so compatible with Ritchie (“Eyes Of The World”, “Danger Zone” and “Lost In Hollywood”), my favorite and songs that I’m sorry they’re not in the DP catalog. Because they have the classic DP songs you need… an intro, an infectious guitar phrase, excellent singing, a central melodic solo, a guitar and keyboard landscape, excellent drumming.
Ian Gillan and Ritchie had great albums in 1979 and keyboardists who built the band’s sound…on the other hand, the great Jon Lord was getting crumbs in Whitesnake
#11 Uwe
I agree, BOOS in my opinion is the best album of the post-Dio period, excellent composition and a mix that gives it a nocturnal atmosphere later found again in Perfect Strangers.
In my head I would have liked some of the BOOS songs to have been played by MK II bis and not by Rainbow, and now they would be classics of the DP repertoire.
#13 Ivica
February 12th, 2025 at 11:46everything you say makes me think that Bonnet’s songs would have been suitable for Gillan’s voice, and it would have been interesting to hear him sing those songs
In Eyes of the World there’s one of my favorite Blackmore solos and the whole piece is fantastic, beautifully sustained.
February 12th, 2025 at 14:36Ciao 🍷
I’m a great Bonnet fan, outside of Rainbow too, but I think Down To Earth suffers from Roger Glover’s production, it sounds almost a bit glam rock’ish and cheap, music you hear at one of the rides at a carnival if you know what I mean, very blatant. It’s similar to what Pip Williams did to the sound of Status Quo with the releases following Blue For You.
Make no mistake, it is probably what Ritchie wanted at the time, overtly commercial sonics similar to the mid-70s sounds of Nazareth’s singles hits (also produced by Roger Glover), but that sound hasn’t aged well. While I will forever prefer Graham’s voice to Joe’s, I do find the JoLT-eral albums more adult and organic sounding.
And anybody believing that Ian could have just stepped in for Bonnet on Down To Earth is delusional. While there are similarities how both like to record their voices (with 70s style endless multi-tracking of the same vocal line to fatten it up, also popular with Ozzy and Joey Ramone), IG would have preferred execution by firing squad to singing inane, misogynist and not even funny crap lyrics like these here:
“You’re walking up with your eyes on me
It’s looking good, but I just don’t know
I need a girl who can keep her head (in live versions, “keep her” was often tastefully replaced with “give me” 🙄)
All night long
You didn’t come just to see the show
I guess you know what you wanna see
The way you smile lets me know I can’t go wrong
Wanna touch you, wanna feel you
I wanna make you mine
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I saw you standing down by the stage
Your black stockings and your see-through dress
Your mouth is open, but I don’t wannna hear you
Say good night
You’re sorta young but you’re over age
I don’t care ’cause I like your style
Don’t know about your brain but you look alright
I wanna touch you, wanna feel you
Wanna make you mine
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
Your mind is dirty but your hands are clean
You’re short of class but your legs are long
I know I can’t stand another night
On my own
Hey girl, would you like some wine?
What’s your name? Are you by yourself?
Are you the one, what’s your sign, can I take you home?
Wanna touch you, wanna feel you
Wanna make you mine
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I wanna love you all night long
I wanna be with you all night long
I wanna love you all night long…”
That Glover lyric is so horrible, it’s bad enough to turn anyone into a feminist. Ape-fucking-palling. David Coverdale, in his worst moments, was a heartfelt poet in comparison.
February 12th, 2025 at 16:40@16
“That Glover lyric is so horrible”
February 12th, 2025 at 20:18Yeah, but I find similarities in ‘Rat Bat Blue’, but please don’t trash that one, because I love the melody 😊☺️
Eyes of the World is the only high quality song on Down To Earth. The album is a bridge over to the next phase of Rainbow. I know what Uwe means regarding the sound production, but that isn’t all that important to me when the songs are sub standard to poor. Song quality first, sound second for me. Yes those lyrics are really poor Uwe, but have you really forgotten how awful Coverdale is as a lyricist at times? Unfortunately for me I have not. I really need to totally erase from my memory some of Coverdale’ appalling lyrics (I will NOT repeat any of them here for the sake of decency), but for some reason I keep getting reminded of them. I am far from being ‘prudish’ about those sort of lyrics of Coverdale & others, they are just so immature in all aspects, school boy material. Any of the boy meets girl & then all goes awry stories are sub standard and clichéd to me. I know it is a part of the initial rock n roll, blues, folk music etc, but man oh man, has it been done to death and also taken down the gutter level in many aspects over the decades. Cheers
February 12th, 2025 at 22:56I had hoped to have forgotten all about Rat Bat Blue … 😑, that was lyrically horrible too, you’re of course right, Karin. All Night Long is just plain dumb, but Rat Bat Blue is spiteful, yuck, even for the 28-year-old who wrote it. 😣
I have absolutely no issues with people writing songs about casual sex, but do it without denigrating the other protagonist.
One of the best songs about a casual sex brief encounter is this one by Dr Hook, “Four Years Older Than Me”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfvIZyfm6PQ
“I was seventeen years old that day
I was trying to find a woman for my birthday
So I made up my mind, and I didn’t waste no time
And I took my daddy’s Caddy down the freeway
Had a pocketful of bait, it was gettin’ kinda late
It was bumper next to bumper on the highway
Sittin’ jammed up tight, looked over to my right
There was a hitchhikin’ honey goin’ my way
About four years older than me
Biggest dang woman that I ever did see
But that sure didn’t seem to matter
She made me so crazy, that I threw my love at her
And I scored
When I saw that pretty thumb, I motioned her to come
And she smiled and looked at me a little sideways
I said “Come on jump inside, we’ll take a little ride”
And she said “Awright little man, let’s go to my place”
About four years older than me
Biggest dang woman that I ever did see
But that sure didn’t seem to matter
She made me so crazy, that I threw my love at her
And I scored
But that was long ago, now there’s lots of things I know
And there’s been a lot of parties, wasn’t bad
I’ve learned a lot since then, but I still remember when
I got the best piece of cake I ever had
About four years older than me
Biggest dang woman that I ever did see
But that sure didn’t seem to matter
She made me so crazy, that I threw my love at her
And I scored”
And if you want some fertilisation/motherhood wish romance added to it, take this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAfxs0IDeMs
“It was a rainy night when he came into sight
Standing by the road, no umbrella, no coat
So I pulled up along side and I offered him a ride
He accepted with a smile, so we drove for a while
I didn’t ask him his name, this lonely boy in the rain
Fate tell me it’s right, is this love at first sight
All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will You want me too
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin’ arms to hold on to
So we found this hotel, it was a place I knew well
We made magic that night, oh, he did everything right
He brought the woman out of me, so many times, easily
And in the morning when he woke all I left him was a note
I told him “I am the flower, you are the seed
We walked in the garden, we planted a tree
Don’t try to find me, please don’t you dare
Just live in my memory, you’ll always be there”
All I wanna do is make love to you
One night of love was all we knew
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin’ arms to hold on to
Oh, oooh, we made love
Love like strangers
All night long
We made love
Then it happened one day, we came round the same way
You can imagine his surprise when he saw his own eyes
I said “Please, please understand, I’m in love with another man
And what he couldn’t give me was the one little thing that you can”
All I wanna do is make love to you
One night of love was all we knew
All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will, you want me too
All night long
All night long
All night long
All night long”
So if you’re gonna sing about something like that, do it with some friggin’ style.
Interestingly, the song was written by Mutt Lange, and Ann Wilson, the lead singer of Heart, actually commented that it was in fact more of a country song and a country theme that would have fitted his future wife Shania better to perform. Ann also had qualms about the message of the song which she didn’t want to advocate (Heart stopped performing it for a while). I sure don’t have issues with it, hey, I root for the girl! Perfectly understandable in her situation. Always thought you could have turned that song into a perfect tearjerker of a romance movie, that’s just how romantic and empathetic I am! 😎
This slowed down piano version is beautiful too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBK7C7LrF3g
February 12th, 2025 at 23:0317Karin Verndal
@16
🤣 I agree with you
February 12th, 2025 at 23:39@
cheers 🥂
@17
“A little red hot tomato” ☺️☺️☺️☺️ as Dan Baird sings in “Look at what you started”:
https://youtu.be/KbYzIco6uL0?si=NXf_6aNxZR9JX3Gp
Please Uwe, I have almost just got up!
I prefer the more discreet hints actually!
February 13th, 2025 at 07:20To everyone moaning about how bad some lyrics in rock’n’roll are, they are kinda supposed to be that way. Let’s face it, before rock became art, it emerged as a way of expressing primal feelings. It’s about horny boys anxious to meet girls. And it still remains wired that way, no matter how many concept albums and rock operas have been released. Each time you hear a song with the lyrics of the “Beavis and Butthead invited to the Spinal Tap backstage party” kind, recall your own teenage years, what some of your most urgent wishes were and how it played out in the music you put on your turntable.) In the words of the great Nigel Tufnel, what’s wrong with being sexy?
February 13th, 2025 at 07:40@22
Georgivs I agree with you, to some extent.
But I also find that particular theme being present in almost all operas, along with those big and deep feelings of hate, jealousy, mistrust and misunderstandings!
But ok not all rock’n’roll is only about hooking up with someone!
Gillan and also Purple have made a lot of songs about how disappointing friendships can be!
This one:
https://youtu.be/V5-lcDX0lG0?si=-oUIlKk_6DDfXVd2
And not to forget this:
https://youtu.be/Ayf6zjQK074?si=TfCkjGHpcAwsduJD
And Gillan has this:
https://youtu.be/i4jRJ40spIM?si=HDJwmO2TfKit8glm
And of course this beauty:
https://youtu.be/LqXTAXLrb7Q?si=2AqQF9nzeZGaBpa3
And this favourite band of mine, was really making songs for the girlies, but now and then they poured out some lesser romantic songs:
https://youtu.be/Ndnidos5HRU?si=ii04N_mysR2QhuZO
Among many others ☺️😉
But I guess really good music, whether it is rock or more classical music, will always touch on sensitive topics we can relate to!
I mean, not much point in writing a lovely rock’n’roll song about how to make my potted plants grow, even though I’m sure Ian would be able to make an interesting song about carnations and how to fertilize them😄
The deep, difficult feelings, that can be so hard to express in words, can be translated into singing – and then suddenly it’s easier to SCREAM your sorrow or disappointments or indeed love out in the open.
February 13th, 2025 at 09:00I guess that is why we love to hear them over and over again because they let us free some inner knots 😊
@ 22- not moaning about it, just talking I thought. You have it right in the schoolboy teenage related era, I mentioned that, however the problem is many of these ‘boys’ are actually grown men. That is what we are talking about. We do often hear the expression, ‘just bigger & older children but none the wiser’. Unfortunately some lyricists, musicians, actors etc don’t ever want to or are unable to leave their youth behind. Such is life. Cheers.
February 13th, 2025 at 10:21#16 Uwe
I wasn’t talking about the lyrics of DTE, but about the fact that for the flow of those songs, and for Bonnet’s voice, for me it’s the Rainbow album where Gillan’s voice would have been good.
February 13th, 2025 at 11:17@19
Just need to say this, according to Mr Tennant and co there is that special someone for everyone 😉 (without being too indiscreet)
https://youtu.be/wTkfK2g4pKI?si=lXMYrZ2MteRbDwsY
I’m not quite sure who the gentleman with the very long and very well-manicured fingernails and unfortunate front-teeth is(I mean, he can never hide it was in fact him who took a bite of the cake that was meant for the guests), but he gets the beauty for sure 😄
(Sorry to drag Pet Shop Boys in here again, but something is easier said in a popsong 😂)
February 13th, 2025 at 11:17While All Night Long was just palin mainstream hardrock of the day and could have been on a KISS album as well, RAT BAT BLUE indeed made me wonder for decades as it is so below IG’s standards.
David Coverdale is a whole different matter. As the man himself said “there is a humour in songs like Sklide It In but I can’t force people to see it.” I always thought he was tongue in cheek and still giggle about some of his stuff. Even a lot of ladies seem to find it quite amusing. I have know one or two of them!
A nice song in that section is “The Devil Made Me Do It” by the fantastic Thunder. A band I recommend to everyone anyway.
February 13th, 2025 at 13:25There is nothing wrong AT ALL with being primal and sexy, Georgivs, but Roger Glover’s lyrics aren’t/weren’t primal and sexy, they are/were demeaning, unpoetic and unerotic boys’ crap. And he was 34 (with a wife and a daughter) when he wrote them, not 14. Don’t write lyrics about women as if you’re Donald Trump for chrissakes.
If you’re gonna write about sex, do it with some finesse, spit & vinegar or have it oozing with juice, that’s all fine by me, just be ORGANIC about it. It’s not that hard, even little guys can do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfHsF6FKgb4&list=PLWaeoVYyVr_TLV881t1cYDPWGwl9yKWkJ
And then ask yourself why Prince had more female fans than Rainbow.
February 13th, 2025 at 14:09@28
“And then ask yourself why Prince had more female fans than Rainbow.”
February 13th, 2025 at 21:19He was great!
I really liked him in his last years.
I agree with my dear brethren Max, a keen and obviously thoroughly experienced observer of the human (and especially male) psyche in all its cavernous depths, dem nichts Menschliches fremd zu sein scheint …
Coverdale is indeed a different matter. His lyrics are mono-thematic, repetitive and frankly often inane, BUT: He doesn’t denigrate women. He’s a lecherous make-believe Lothario who actually adores and worships anything female, he puts them on the pedestal of his gargantuan sexual longing. He’s not dismissive or mean-spirited.
And the real David Coverdale married (for the first time of only three all in all), himself only 23 years old, at the height of his DP fame in 1974 – when groupies were likely queuing up to give him blowjobs – a woman in her 30s, not a groupie or actress or model, but a business woman earning her own money who was somewhat bemused by the rock star world around him. He stayed together with Julia Borkowski for eight years
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR1TYwBBMeVSDSeYOw5892f2razZVvPp8EyvqER_8b9VF2omc9zWYcJ-DBejBQ1-KoMnF8&usqp=CAU
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTP2x8CqcoRLpNw9lBIbrROjXsJxO0qCINJvPj2o8T3CqhDgQaCu9UpzARaJhhlmWrrYns&usqp=CAU,
the separation from her inspired the lyrics to Here I Go Again. The marriage with Twany Kitaen – admittedly a trophy wife at the time and a handful as it turned out – lasted only two years (“we got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout …” 😁)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAca-M-9xpY ,
ok, so we all make mistakes in hormone rushes. And he’s been married to his wife Cindy Barker since 1997, which shows some longevity for a rock star marriage.
So with Coverdale that scaly & writhing lust (incidentally, he’s an 🐍 😲 ophidiophobiac 😲 🐍 and died a a thousand deaths when they photographed him with a real snake – a semi-adult boa contrictor – for the promotion of his debut solo album in 1977 😂) is a put-on and there is always some respect, admiration and even fandom for the female gender in it. Coverdale doesn’t have lot of male friends, he prefers the company of women.
Or as Justin Hawkins of The Darkness once put it: “Would you believe, he unashamedly flirted with my mother, calling her “darling” in his deep voice right before my eyes, when we toured with Whitesnake – and my mum went for it, acting all skittish! It was uncomfortable for me, but what can you do, he’s David Coverdale!” 🤣
February 13th, 2025 at 22:48Thunder, Max? Pah, kids’ stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QiN0zzqHEc
February 13th, 2025 at 22:57@@23, 24 & 28 Point taken. I appreciate good lyrics myself, even as in music it is music that comes first, with lyrics maybe not even in the second place. What I’m saying is that while a good rock song certainly benefits from having good lyrics, it’s not a mandatory requirement. You may want to write about a one night stand in a poetic way, but you don’t have to.
Speaking of the fact that people write childish lyrics at some supposedly mature age, I think that there’s always some distance between the artist and his/her product. Sometimes an artist just creates a distinct on stage persona quite different from his/her self or sometimes he just caters to the tastes of his audience. In case of ANL (gosh, what an acronym I just came up with), I think Roger was writing for the teens and tweens who were buying Rainbow records back then. It was also okayed by the MIB who’d had enough of Ronnie’s dungeons and dragons by then. I also think that Mrs. Glover didn’t lose her sleep when she learned that her husband wrote and produced a song about a one night stand, made it a big hit and brought home some hefty royalties.
February 14th, 2025 at 08:23Georgivs, the sole redeeming feature about ANL (do not pronounce this too hurriedly …) was Bonnet’s OTT laddish delivery of the song, he was at least credible with it. Now if Roger had sung it … 😁
Not even Dio could have and it wouldn’t have befitted him either. In his Rainbow days I once saw him shuffle two or three 14-year-olds (doing their valiant best to look older via dress and make-up as young girls are sometimes prone to) from the backstage area, real jailbait stuff. And he had the paternal air of a friendly school principal wishing them good-bye and patting them on the shoulder, not of a leering rock star more than twice their age (he was 34 at the time) who had done god-knows-what to them. He is said to always have been extremely gentlemanly to female fans, let’s not forget to mention that as well.
Frankly, I don’t think that Blackmore gives a rat’s ass about the lyrics to his songs (strange for someone who professes to like Bob Dylan) other than that he sometimes has vague ideals à la “Write something about a witch!” (Burn), or “A Homeric warrior!” (Soldier of Fortune), “Ronnie, no damsels, dungeons & dragons this time, sing about rock’n’roll for once!” (Long Live Rock’n’Roll) or “Hey Ian, we had a song with Rainbow which we abbreviated ANL, I kinda liked the sound of that, can you do something with it and not bum me out for once?” (Knocking At Your Back Door) 🤣.
How adolescent-juvenile you are, Georgivs, you’ve just shattered my positive “adult in the room” vision of you, tsk tsk tsk …
February 14th, 2025 at 16:19@30
Thank you for the insight about DC 😊
“The marriage with Twany Kitaen – admittedly a trophy wife at the time and a handful as it turned out – lasted only two years.” <- in what way was she a handful? ☺️
“And he’s been married to his wife Cindy Barker since 1997, which shows some longevity for a rock star marriage.” <- I believe your Ian was married almost 40 years with his sweetheart Bron 😉
“ophidiophobiac” – ok spiders are way worse 🫣😱
“It was uncomfortable for me, but what can you do, he’s David Coverdale!”” <- 😅😅 I know what I had done had it been my mum!
February 14th, 2025 at 18:22@28 & 32
Gentlemen, I read the other day, that “Knocking on your back door” was in fact made so Purple could be played more (or at all) on MTV!
Was it cheap? Oh yes indeed!
Is it understandable that they tried? Well, no not really. I think when they had this phenomenal band, making all this wonderful music, why twist and turn yourself for some air-play (or what’s it called when it is the all-dominating tv)
Did people like the song? Yeah some did, at least the younger population did!
I do believe all bands are “allowed” to make some blunders, lyrically and musically without it is defining them for good ☺️
February 14th, 2025 at 18:39From the dreaded Wikipedia: “The song also came in for some criticism due to its overtly sexist lyrics. This prompted a double-page spread on sexism in music in a Sounds issue that September.[5] In an issue released a month later, Blackmore appeared on the front cover dressed in stockings and suspenders, with the headline “Blackmore in new ‘Black Stockings’ Sexism Outrage”, and this was likely a publicity stunt.[6] He did say of the song’s criticism:
“I think there’s a lot of women who are very boring. Everybody knows it’s all tongue in cheek, and anybody who doesn’t know that isn’t worth being talked about anyway. The whole world has always been men running after women, and the woman is the peacock going around with her feathers up, so that’s the way it will always be no matter how many people go around trying to change it.”
— Sounds, 11 October 1980[7]
February 14th, 2025 at 23:52There is playful sexism – which to me is ok – and there is misogyny, which is not. ANL falls fairly and squarely into the latter category. And it’s dishonest. With the mindset of the narrator the chorus should have been “I wanna fuck you all night long”. Let’s not pussyfoot around, that is what the song boils down to.
And Ritchie, with all due respect, has little competence ANLyzing gender roles.
BTW, KOYBD is to me the best DP song from the era 1984-1993, riff, Blackmore solos, arrangement, soaring vocal melody, Paicey drums, Jon Lord & Roger Glover intro + tongue-in-ass (or wherever) lyrics and all. I love that song and the lyrics are actually witty, something I fail to find in a song like ANL masticating tropes like
– “need a girl who can keep her/give me head”,
– “you didn’t come just to see the show, I guess you know what you wanna see”,
– “your mouth is open”,
-“you’re sorta young, but you’re over age” and – worst of all –
– “don’t know about your brain, but you look alright” plus
– “you’re short of class, but your legs are long”. 🙄
If that isn’t denigrating, then “grab’em by the pussy” was a flattering compliment too.
Do the test: If your daughter went to a rock band gig, would you want people to sing about her like that in the aftermath?
February 15th, 2025 at 05:40@37
“I love that song and the lyrics are actually witty”, well regarding KOYBD, I really love the music, but years ago I had to explain the lyrics to this young person who didn’t have a clue what-so-ever!
February 15th, 2025 at 19:07So what did I say? I would certainly not tell this young person the real meaning, so I said some nonsense about this multilingual professor who moonlighted as a locksmith 😐
Not my brightest moment 🫤
Still looking round for that Max character you are on about Uwe…but thanks anyway!
February 16th, 2025 at 14:17Thanks but no thanks regarding the Golden Earring clip. I’ll rather stick with Thunder. BTW: Have you listened to Luke Morley’s Songs from the Blue Room? Perfekt für alte weiße Männer.
MacGregor, thank you for the insight…I have seen the pics of Blackers in black stockings but never knew about the background of that shots.
I’m not sure whether the phrase “knocking on your back door” just refers to anal sex in that song, the lyrics go deeper (no pun intended!) than that. I’m relatively sure that IG had that double entendre in mind as well, but the phrase can also mean that the past is “knocking on your back door” and one of the protagonists of the song is after all “sweet Nancy” who would “ease gently from an Austin to a Bentley” – a social climber (always a favorite subject for IG).
Biological fact: Unlike men, women lack a prostate (its chief job is to squeeze out semen with some velocity so that it can get to places where it can do its reproductive work) that can be rectally stimulated. That is why in gay intercourse both the giving and the receiving partner can have a simultaneous orgasm, but this, dear friends (I know I’m shattering long held male myths here, sorry), doesn’t work if a woman is the receiving partner, so Big Ian’s chorus observations about women reaching “the point of no return” or verse determinations of “suddenly she feels so right” would show a deplorable lack of knowledge of female anatomy were the song just about that. To close this Sunday sermon, female orgasms via rectal stimulation are an invention of the male-led porn industry, it only works the other way around. Now have that info knocking on your back door! 😂
February 16th, 2025 at 15:58@40
“I’m not sure whether the phrase “knocking on your back door” just refers to anal sex in that song,” <- well according to Ian he said in an interview (I can find the quote if you need to see it ☺️) that he thought everyone knew it is about anal sex.
And thank you for the in-depth analysis of that part of life, of which I know nothing 😊
February 16th, 2025 at 18:18@ 40 – Thanks for the ‘insight’ Reverend Uwe, I will make sure I include all that in this Sundays sermon at my next church service. Seriously though the old blues artists included ‘back door man’ and similar phrases in many of those older blues songs. The old Willie Dixon song from 1960. Led Zeppelin used a similar phrase within the song ‘Whole Lotta Love’ – “shake for me girl, I wanna be your back door man”. They (the older blues artists) would not have been thinking of that ‘other’ way when using that phrase, I could be wrong though, who knows. The Doors also covered ‘Back Door Man’ on their debut album from 1967. Sermon over for now. Regards, Reverend MacGregor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Door_Man
February 16th, 2025 at 23:35Ian says in every interview something a little different and varies and embellishes stories over time. He’s also said that the song started initially on the anal sex subject, but wasn’t only about that as it developed. Funnily enough and though my dirty mind is vast, I never heard KOYBD as a song about a sexual practice but as one about your past always catching up with you. I guess I’m too innocent about these things.
Why was Tawny a handful, Karin? If DC is to be believed, her constant desire for 24/7 attention tired him out real quick. He’d be in the studio with the band working on new songs and she’d call and demand him on the phone to discuss which color the drapes in their house should be. Now if you ask Tawny, she called DC “a narcissistic idiot”, so they probably both gave as good as they got. As his also deteriorated relationship with John Sykes showed, DC is not that good at letting other people stand in the limelight too. There seem to have been alcohol issues with Tawny for a while as well, but she overcame those.
To give a complete picture, in later times (and after the dramatic divorce from her second husband where she was accused of domestic violence, but charges were eventually dropped), Twany spoke more warmly of DC:
QUOTE
Do you still communicate with David at all?
“No. Unfortunately, we don’t. I don’t think it’s because of him that we don’t talk but I wish him the very best and on record he has the best rock and roll voice ever. I’ve been there with just a piano and him, without all this. I’d play him music that he’d never heard. He loved to sit there and listen to me playing him songs he’d never heard. I was like a DJ for him, we had a good time. Nothing but good things to say about that man. He still has a great voice. He started out better then everyone else so even if he starts to lose it he’ll still be better than most of the people singing.”
UNQUOTE
February 17th, 2025 at 00:13@43
Thanks Uwe ☺️
“and on record he has the best rock and roll voice ever” – ohhh ok, she was bewildered 😉
February 17th, 2025 at 09:43@ 42 RE: “Back Door Man”
A “back door man” is the guy who comes to your house (through the back door to avoid being seen by your neighbors) while you’re at work and slips it to your wife. In other words. he’s your wife’s other guy. All those blues guys weren’t singing about anal sex they just wanted to be some fine lady’s bit on the side.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially songs lyrics generated by AI voice recognition software. Correct me if I’m wrong; but RP is singing “Shake for me girl, I want to feel like a man”.
February 17th, 2025 at 09:55@ 45 I have always seen it that way too … even our very own David Coverdale uses it in the song White Snake: “Back door man ain’t done nothing … but creep around the door … ”
I guess it is used tongue in cheek for that other phenomenon as well sometimes but in the first place it was the guy who slipped in through the back door while hubby wa away.
February 17th, 2025 at 11:10@43
“Ian says in every interview something a little different and varies and embellishes stories over time.“
Ok I can see I have to let you see what Ian really said 😃
Katharina asks this:
“By the way, in what relation is (I can’t find it in the dictionary) the video clip of “Knocking at your backdoor” to the song, or better, what’s the song about? Thanks.
Katharina”
Ian answers:
“The video clip for ‘Knocking at your Back Door’ bears no relation whatsoever to the words; which are about anal sex (I thought everyone knew that). There was, as far as I can remember, a crazy idea that there might be some chance of DP being played on MTV. With the lyrics in mind there was obviously a need for some degree of visual euphemism, ludicrous as it seemed to me.”
(Uwe I have this from gillan.com)
But if he isn’t to be trusted then the lyrics could actually be about this multilingual professor who had such a poor salary he really needed to be moonlighting as a locksmith ☺️
February 17th, 2025 at 12:35@45 & 46
Then I have to say this: I feel sorry for the husband of such a lady!
That marriage is doomed to begin with 😏
But as you may see in the answer from me to Uwe, Purple wanted to have more air play, so they made this song.
I do love the tune, it’s very energetic and almost like a bonfire sing-a-long 😄
February 17th, 2025 at 12:39Ian has also said this about the song:
QUOTE
There’s this guy named Redbeard, from a radio station down in Texas. He phoned me up after it had been played on every radio station in America and said, “Is this what I think it’s about?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “It’s amazing, every radio station in America is playing a song written about anal sex and they don’t even realize what’s going on.” And I was like, well it’s not in-your-face anal sex, it’s just a joke. It just came about with the lyrics. It’s no big deal. But it’s a humorous thing and not meant to be offensive. And I think it was just an afterthought. It certainly wasn’t what inspired the song.
UNQUOTE
Let’s just agree then that the true meaning of the lyrics as a whole is murky to opaque, but if it is your penetrative thrust for it to be about anal and nothing but(t) anal sex then who am I to wiggle?! 😇
[Flash thought: Why didn’t they use it in this iconic scene then which made one part of its male audience squirm with pleasure in their seats, other parts of the audience however with unease? 😂
https://youtu.be/PmnuiA8f4IU ]
February 17th, 2025 at 19:40Doubting Dilligaf @45 last para:
Nope, “back door man” it truly is, here at 04:05:
https://youtu.be/HQmmM_qwG4k
Unless your version of reference was a different one of course!
https://youtu.be/moANykp4UWM
February 17th, 2025 at 19:57@ 45 – regarding your comment, I most certainly do not believe everything in the media, internet, printed or in any other format. However I do know that AI definitely didn’t exist in 1969 or in the immediate years following. I have always known those lyrics from listening to the song from about the mid 70’s somewhere. At the time of writing that, Robert Plant would have more than likely just been imitating the blues guys, however he may have been using the double meaning, who knows. We all know how much Led Zeppelin, especially early on in their career did do just that (imitating) the early blues. Ian Gillan in 1984 is another story, double entendre’s indeed and he often wrote that way in certain lyrics, whether good or bad. Cheers.
February 17th, 2025 at 23:51@ 50 Uwe, I do believe that you are right. I guess I’ve been hearing it wrong for 50+ years. 🙁 🙁 🙁
February 18th, 2025 at 07:11@ 51
Just saw your post…
RE: “do not believe everything in the media, internet, printed or in any other…”
That portion of my reply to you came from me being cocksure that I was right. As Uwe has pointed out I was most certainly wrong. My apologies… As stated in my earlier reply to Uwe; I must’ve been hearing the lyrics wrong for over 50 years. How do I look with egg on my face?
February 18th, 2025 at 08:26@ 53 – I am not worried at all about your comments, no problems. However it has me thinking about the Led Zeppelin vinyl albums I owned back in the day. I don’t think any of their albums had the printed lyrics in them, from my memory. I have noticed online some of the lyrics of theirs & it looks quite humorous seeing all the oooh’s and ahhh’s that Plant carried on with back then and other words repeated over and over, ‘come on, come on, come on’ etc. Also the ‘do it do it do it’ all that nonsense he went over the top with at times. Humorous but also silly in there delivery and even a little annoying. Someone would have copied or printed those lyrics from somewhere we could think & then of course they get repeated all over the internet. Cheers.
February 18th, 2025 at 10:41Karin@21, Love the Dan Baird Reference. Am a Huge fan of his solo work and in The Yayhoos.
February 18th, 2025 at 15:54@55
Nice to meet a fellow-DB enthusiast! 👋🏼
He gave two concerts in Sweden this fall (‘24)
He is an amazing guy!
Has overcome cancer twice, and is really pouring his heart out in concerts.
I really loved Georgia Satellites, but indeed also his solo-work.
February 18th, 2025 at 22:53I like his lyrics, he tells the most heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking stories ☺️
TAFKADilligaf: You still look roguish handsome even with egg on your face, rest assured! 😘
And you’re not alone: For the greater part of my adult life, I misheard/misfantasized Jim Morrison’s “Ashen lady” (“… give up your vows”) in Roadhouse Blues as a somewhat more direct “I should’ve laid you”. You know how men are, eight-track-stereo, but one-track-mind. 😌
And then there is always this goody here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awE9SFsmOFU
For decades, I believed to hear a somewhat Dadaist “Come a west side, chickadee, have a house made of your knee”. The deeper sense always eluded me. One day I learned that Compañero Noddy, the ole bilinguist, sings:
“Como estas chickadee, have a housemaid on your knee”
which may show general health concerns (which would be commendable from any rock band):
https://patient.info/bones-joints-muscles/knee-pain-patellofemoral-pain/housemaids-knee-prepatellar-bursitis
or, and who can rule this out with a band featuring as leering a front man as Slade?, allude to lecherous stereotyped male fantasies:
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/AE2HTA/hotel-maid-and-waiter-taking-a-break-AE2HTA.jpg
In any case, no knee caps saw use as building materials, that’s relief after all these years!
https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/190604112959-church-of-bones-sedlecossuary1.jpg?q=w_1600,h_900,x_0,y_0,c_fill/h_447
Finally, who ever listened to Robert Plant’s lyrics anyway? This is not a knock, but I firmly hold that he is a chief example – much more so than, say, Ian Gillan, Ozzy Osbourne or David Byron – of a singer who mainly used his voice like another melody instrument (and he did that well, I grudgingly admit), not as something to transport words with as messages. Plant transported raw emotion, impulse and libido with his voice, yes, but he didn’t really need words to do that.
Now wipe that egg off your face and get up, Soldier!
February 19th, 2025 at 19:35@ 57
Funny how our brains fill in the blanks.
Ashen lady” (“… give up your vows”) For a long time I thought Morrison was singing “give up your mouth” Thinking ol’ Jim just wanted some head. Then I read No One Here Gets Out Alive & found out that wasn’t the case.
Then there’s always the first verse of Via Miami with its “Giransanvellybadamellicatobrame…”
February 19th, 2025 at 23:36The lead vocalist who doesn’t play an instrument conundrum. I know what you mean Uwe, in regards to Plant and I have often thought that, although he did over do it vocally in the 1970’s. When we see a lead vocalist just standing there all the time and not doing anything else, I find that a little goofy looking actually, if that is the way to put it. Get involved somehow, (easier said than done most probably) or walk off the stage for any lengthy period of inactivity. At least Ian Gillan played the congas a little at times or went to the pub, as he often jokingly said. David Byron, Ozzy and a few others look uncomfortable when there isn’t any singing going down. I suppose that is where all that strutting comes into play for some. Ozzy excluded, I don’t think I have ever noticed him ‘strutting’ and lets’ face it, that wouldn’t work for him, he isn’t flamboyant at all. Poor ole Oz. With this so called finale of Black Sabbath in June or July this year, Ozzy will be emerging on some sort of stage lifter I imagine. He is unable to walk properly from what I have read. Then he will not be able to stand for too long either, as he stated recently. They should have performed this finale 10 year or so ago. I will not be watching any of it anyway as it seems to be more about the other acts doesn’t it? We all know who is behind all this charade anyway, don’t we? Poor old Bill Ward missed his opportunity back then, easy said though, he did have his issues with that at the time for different reasons. I didn’t watch any of the recent Genesis ‘reunion’ with Phil Collins sitting down all the time to sing. I prefer to remember these musicians the way they were when in their prime etc. Each to their own. Cheers.
February 20th, 2025 at 00:51Russ, your commendable quest for the deeper meaning of
“Giransanvellybadamellicatobrame”
in ‘Via Miami”, that perceptive air traveler’s lament, has herewith ended, let the Maestro on his Caramba! pages enlighten you:
QUOTE
‘Giransanvellybadamellicatobrame’ can be broken down as thus:
Ah, but first an explanation of the song Via Miami … I had lost countless pieces of luggage in Miami Airport en route to other destinations: That hub of ineptitude, second only to London Heathrow as a despairing example of public service in the travel industry. I haven’t flown through Miami in a long time so it may have improved, but my daughter set off from LHR yesterday and arrived in Havana sans baggage; so no change there then.
The lyrics tell the story of lost bags and where they might have been on their journeys, inconsistent with my itineraries; one terminus being imagined as Japan.
In Japan, on my first visit, I was addressed very politely by the people at Toshiba/EMI as Gillan San.
I have since progressed through the graciousness of age to being Mr. Gillan.
It’s a well known fact that the Japanese can say their Ls and Rs very well, but through some quirk in the early learning of English they get them the wrong way round. So Gillan San as I heard it was Giran San.
So back to ‘thus’… we have the first part of the puzzle, and if you follow that train of thought you’ll see that we end up with the Japanese blaming the Americans at Miami Airport for the non-appearance of my accoutrements … and all the time I was in Montserrat.
Translation – Mr. Gillan (Giransan) We’re very sorry (vellybad) but it’s the Americans at fault (amellicatobrame).
Make any sense to you?
UNQUOTE
😁😂🤣 So now you know. Big Ian can be onomatopoeic even when he is not taking a leak.
Anything else I can help you with? 😎
February 20th, 2025 at 19:01Uwe… Thanks, I thought at one time I saw an explanation of it on Caramba! but it’s not in the Wordography section. Forgot about looking further using the Carambascopic advanced search funtion.
Uwe & the everyone else; The first time you heard Via Miami what did your brain make giransanvellybadamellicatobrame out to be?
February 22nd, 2025 at 06:49Oops!!! I forgot to address you by your new moniker in my previous post. Sorry about that… Grandpa Uwe.
Oh yes, one more thing… Congratulations.
February 22nd, 2025 at 08:20It didn’t really register with me, Russ, I was rather drawn in by that circular “Viamiamiviamiamiviamiamiviamiami” ad lib part in the middle which sounded like the needle of the record got stuck! I was mesmerized by that, still am.
February 22nd, 2025 at 19:57On second thought, I think I did hear it as “Gillan said: Very bad, am I the one to blame?”, but missed the joke on The Japanese cliche pronunciation of r and l totally. 🤗
Which is ralgery an invention by Westeln WWII plopaganda!
https://images.app.goo.gl/Q13nztjaXx7uLwr99
February 22nd, 2025 at 20:15Until I had a chance to see the lyrics I always thought it was something, something, something, something (unintelligible), American debris.
Please pardon my tardy response… I work 2 jobs & also look after my 91 year old mother which means I’m really tired most of the time and, as I demonstrated the other day, prone to brain-farts.
March 1st, 2025 at 07:53