Her musical career started in 1975 when she founded the Runaways with Lita Ford. She was dominant, confident, and an all-around bad ass. She was a woman, and her sexuality played a big part in the development and transmission of her image, but she was taken seriously on the same level as the other male guitar-playing lead singers of the day as well. Joan Jett has become synonymous with feminism in rock music because she refused to be just a female musician who coasted on tokenism. “Looking for three good men.” – Jett’s classified ad looking for Blackhearts band members. This month: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – I Love Rock ‘n Roll Last month, we covered the Replacements’ 1984 goofball-punk classic, Let It Be.
#Joan jett i love rock and roll series
Learn more at Patreon.Welcome back to our new series on Flypaper, Album Histories Monthly, which brings you the story of a single album each month, in the month that it was originally released. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls - hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. Rest in Peace, Alan, and thank you for giving us a song that any one of us can stand up for, sing out loud and pump our fists to. Merrill has stated that, while he thinks Joan Jett’s version is great, his personal favorite is the cover by LA Guns. While there are other covers that vary the formula (ranging from Tiny Tim to Hayseed Dixie), most covers of this song play it “as is.” This song is so good that Alan Merrill covered it himself, twice first on his 2002 solo album Cupid Deranged, and again in 2005 with his band Vodka Collins. Peak weekly chartings in the Top 10 in nearly every country of release show the wisdom of not fixing something that isn’t broken. The earlier Sex Pistols collaboration is a bit more sparse in its production, but remains faithful to the original, as does the Blackhearts version. Here’s the earlier version:Īnd here’s the version we all know and love:īoth Joan Jett covers are straightforward versions that honor the song’s anthemic nature. She did so twice: once in 1979 with Steve Jones and Paul Cook of the Sex Pistols, and again in 1981 with her band, the Blackhearts. It was there that Joan Jett saw the song performed for the first time, and decided to record it. While there was no US release, the song was strong enough to get the Arrows a regular slot on British TV. Shortly thereafter, the record company flipped the script and re-recorded “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” as the A-side (a wise decision, if you listen to the songs one after the another).
That was a fortuitous decision for Hooker, as “I Love Rock ‘n Roll” was originally released as the B-side of “Broken Down Heart,” netting him his credit. In exchange for Hooker fronting him airfare the previous year, Merrill offered Hooker co-writing credit on all subsequent Arrows B-sides, a deal that Hooker accepted. Hooker’s co-writing credit, he explained, was a business decision. While the song is credited to Merrill and bandmate Jake Hooker, Merrill has stated in interview that he was actually the sole writer. So he wrote “I Love Rock and Roll” as an answer song, one that took a definitive stand that was anything but apologetic. Having had some social dealing with Mick Jagger, Merrill knew that Jagger had been palling around with some of the British upper crust, and it seemed to Merrill that saying “I know it’s only rock ‘n roll, but I like it” was Jagger’s mealy-mouthed apology to his new, elite friends.
#Joan jett i love rock and roll tv
Merrill saw the Stones play the title track “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)” on the British TV show “Top of the Pops,” and something about it rubbed him the wrong way. The previous year, the Rolling Stones had released the album It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll, their 14th American (12th UK) album. What’s surprising is that it took until 1975 to put it in a song. It’s safe to say that “I love rock and roll” is a rallying cry for virtually all visitors to this website. In his honor, Cover Me will look at this garage-rock classic elevated to anthem status by the legendary Joan Jett. Merrill (born Alan Sachs), the writer of the Arrows’ best-known, most successful song, “I Love Rock ‘n Roll,” passed away from the effects of COVID-19 on March 29, 2020. Contracting the virus can be fatal and, sadly, it has proven to be so for Alan Merrill, bassist and lead singer for London-based band The Arrows. At the time of this writing, the world is dealing with COVID-19, a viral pandemic that has brought about sweeping changes to how we live, work, play, and even interact with each other.
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