Free, "All Right Now"

Having spent two summers and my senior year of college working at classic rock radio stations, I must have heard Free's "All Right Now" hundreds of times, thousands if we're counting bumpers. And yet, long after I've tired of "Stairway to Heaven" and "Free Bird," I'll happily sit through "All Right Now."



I'm still hearing new things in it. Two years ago, I heard an organist play it at a Cubs game and realized the verses have the same melody as "Footloose" (which "All Right Now" predates by 14 years).



It's the only Free song I know, and I've never felt inclined to seek out any others. I'm assuming they're good, and maybe someday I'll find out. But as of now it feels like the complete encapsulation of a band. Maybe Free themselves realized this, as Paul Rodgers saved nearly of his hits for Bad Company. You've heard the riff in countless other songs, but never played like this, and you might forget which hook goes with it the first dozen or so times it turns up on your FM. But once you get there, you'll stick around for Andy Fraser's moment of rock immortality. The bubbling bass line that takes over the bridge right around 2:20 is a pioneer moment of a bassist taking the lead in a great rock song, and still one of the only rock bass solos that doesn't disappoint or wear out its welcome. Now that we've heard Steve Harris, Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Sting, Flea and more it doesn't sound so unusual, and yet no less perfect.

Song of the Day: AC/DC, "Hell's Bells"

Here's a better hurricane song than anything that the Scorpions ever came up with.



It's hard to imagine in 2012, but picture one of the biggest bands in the world also being one of the best. Imagine that band losing their lead singer right at the peak of their success--i.e., Radiohead following up OK Computer without Thom Yorke. That's the position that AC/DC were in months after Highway to Hell's release, when Bon Scott succumbed to "misadventure" (the coroner's words.)

The band found a flat-capped Englishman named Brian Johnson and put him in the unenviable position of replacing the guy who sang "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap." He rose to challenge on the first song on his first album with AC/DC, introducing himself thusly: "I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain/I'm coming on like a hurricane."



Every AC/DC song is famous for sounding just like every other AC/DC song. But this one doesn't. Angus and Malcolm Young almost never play at this subdued a pace, but even at their slowest they have that signature AC/DC explosiveness. I also wonder if bell in the intro (presumably belonging to the Inferno) inspired Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

Brian Johnson left one of the best first impressions in rock history by kicking off Back in Black with "Hells Bells." He also set a bar that Ronnie James Dio, Sammy Hagar, Blaze Bayley, Ripper Owens and Paul Rodgers never lived up to. Or nearly anybody else.