More classic rock songs from past decades that may not be popular if released today, according to our readers
In October 2021, a reporter noticed a song missing from the Rolling Stones’ setlist. It had been a staple for 50 years. “You picked up on that, huh?” Keith Richards said, NBC News reported.
Our readers sent in seven more songs they think wouldn’t get a pass today. They run from 1968 to 1980, and each has a documented history.
Here are the stories behind them, from the studio to the radio to the setlist.
“Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger’s song sat in the vault for over a year after a December 1969 recording session at Muscle Shoals. A legal dispute with their former manager delayed it. It came out in April 1971 and hit No. 1 that May.
The song is about slavery, and critics say it sexualizes enslaved women. In 1995, Jagger told Rolling Stone, “I never would write that song now”. Richards has said the song was meant to condemn slavery. In 2021, the band said it might come back.
Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever”
Nugent saw the phrase in a medical journal in 1975. It’s a real infection. “I had fun with the lyrics,” he told Ultimate Classic Rock. The 1977 single reached No. 30.
The lyrics turn the cats into women, and the fever into lust, and a Michigan hall of fame says they chronicle a history of promiscuity. Yet the song has been used to fire up fans by the Detroit Tigers, the Cincinnati Bearcats, and the Carolina Panthers. Arenas kept it in rotation anyway.
“The Pusher” by Steppenwolf
Hoyt Axton wrote it after a friend’s overdose. He struggled with addiction himself and wanted to show the dangers. John Kay heard Axton play it at the Troubadour, and Steppenwolf cut a shorter, radio-friendlier version for their 1968 debut. Easy Rider used it in 1969.
The refrain is a curse aimed at the dealer, and readers point to that and the drug theme. It’s an anti-drug song, nominated for being about drugs.
Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”
It came out on November 8, 1972, on Transformer, produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. Each verse is about a Warhol Factory figure. It reached No. 16, and it’s the only one of Reed’s 44 singles to make the Hot 100.
RCA released an edited U.S. single without a reference to a sex act. The song exists because Reed wrote it for a planned musical based on a Nelson Algren novel. The musical fell apart, and he kept the music and swapped the characters.
“Into the Night” by Benny Mardones
The 1980 single hit No. 11. Its opening line puts the girl’s age at 16, and it made many listeners uncomfortable coming from the then-33-year-old Mardones, Billboard noted.
He later said it was inspired by a platonic friendship with a teenage neighbor whose father had left her. A 1989 radio segment brought it back, and it reached No. 20.
Tom Petty’s “Breakdown”
No scandal here. It was Petty’s first single and flopped in 1976. When it was re-released in late 1977, it reached No. 40 in February 1978.
Guitarist Mike Campbell used the lick only at the end until singer Dwight Twilley suggested using it throughout. What readers flag is attitude. One Songfacts commenter calls the narrator “cocky,” and another says there’s no deep meaning at all.
Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”
Brian May wrote it, and it came out on October 13, 1978, as a double A-side with “Bicycle Race.” It reached No. 11 in the U.K., and entered the U.S. chart at No. 70 and climbed to No. 24 in January 1979, Songfacts notes.
The song is about a young man who comes to appreciate women of substantial girth. May told Mojo in 2008 that he wrote it with Freddie Mercury in mind. A song that celebrates bodies, on a list of songs that might not fly. Draw your own conclusion.
The bottom line
The Rolling Stones dropped “Brown Sugar” from their 2021 tour after playing it every night since 1970. Benny Mardones’s “Into the Night” reached No. 11 in 1980, and charted again in 1989.
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