My Top 100, No. 62: "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC

(smokes whole cigarette in one drag, straps on forged steel breastplate, tugs on brim of newsboy cap)
Okay, motherfuckers. Let's do this.

First semester of my senior year of college, I somehow managed to pull off a class schedule in which I had Monday, Wednesday and Friday completely off.

One of my roommates, Nick, who was also the lead guitarist in the band I was in, worked Sunday nights at the Marble Slab, and when he was done serving ice cream, I'd walk down and meet him at a place called Art Bar. Since neither of us had early morning classes, and Sunday was one of the few nights I didn't have to work at the paper and we didn't have band practice, we'd take advantage of that freedom by going to Art Bar and taking advantage of...I think it was $1 domestic beer and $2 well liquor drinks?

Which, even in South Carolina in 2008, was dirt cheap. And like eight or nine different bars did specials like that within walking distance of a city with 17,000 undergrads and 100,000 insane redneck football fans, which looking back on it should've precipitated a public health crisis of some kind.

Anyway, on Friday and Saturday, Art Bar was all dance clubby, but on Sunday, it was usually dead, so we'd go get blind drunk for $9 plus tip and stumble home after last call. On one particular Sunday night, they played "Thunderstruck," and Nick and I started going on about what an awesome song it was, because it was just relentlessly fast and loud and the "THUN-DAH...ahaaah ah aaah aaaah" bit is just the best, and it was immediately decided that we should cover this song if Nick could handle the guitar part.

Two days later, he burst into my dorm room, the guitar intro completely down, and we put it in the rotation. I'm sure there's a sophisticated musical reason why this song so comprehensively kicks ass, but I can't get beyond the importance of--if you're going to get all noodly on the guitar--having the rest of the band find the downbeat and nail your fucking tongue to it, because much as Angus Young tries to convince you otherwise, this song is absolutely ponderous. It is like a brontosaurus, lead guitar notwithstanding.

The second part is something we noticed in rehearsals, because it didn't really come together at all until I started singing it in a Brian Johnson voice. That's because there is no voice that fits latter-day AC/DC other than Brian Johnson's Geordie-accent-after-swallowing-a-pack-of-cigarettes-and-also-five-of-his-own-teeth, and that's because Brian Johnson is an emissary from God, sent down to Earth to salute those who are about to rock.

This is a majestic piece of bouncing-off-the-walls-while-dressed-in-studded-leather madness, and we are all unworthy.