I randomly had to think of how "Rockers Rollin'" evolved from this joke track by Jackie Lynton. Does anyone have any idea whether the original form of the track might still exist somewhere?
"We all want to intellectualize about music, but it's an emotional thing. Do you like it? Yes. Then there's nothing else to say. Do you not like it? No. Then there's nothing else to say. You don't have to say it's shit or the band are shit. And I believe, too, the most overused words are "great" and "shit." - Francis Rossi
Anyway, we eventually got into Rockers Rollin'. The origin of this song was from a mad comedy tape that Jackie Lynton had made for the band. He was a close mate and had made this tape of bizarre tunes, very suited to Quo's equally bizarre humour! One such song was March Of The Slugs (Rolling our way back home). Rick did a masterstroke and turned this into Rockers Rollin'. It was maybe optimistic starting with this. I thought we should maybe ease into things more subtly, particularly given Spud's recent surgery. Remember, this was my first experience of Quo going full tilt.
We recorded a take to listen back to for reference. Up until now, I'd never experienced this quality of rock band performance in the studio and was grinning like mad at the playback, only to have Rick say "This song needs to Rock and that ain't f---ing rocking!". So now I had a yardstick for what was expected and what they were capable of. I remember that on the final master take, I'd wanted it to go on for ages, but the best overall take broke down quite quickly at the end.
"We all want to intellectualize about music, but it's an emotional thing. Do you like it? Yes. Then there's nothing else to say. Do you not like it? No. Then there's nothing else to say. You don't have to say it's shit or the band are shit. And I believe, too, the most overused words are "great" and "shit." - Francis Rossi
