Someone will need to double check this, but I think that Highway to Hell was released in the summer of 1979, and they immediately embarked on a world tour, in which they used to do a show a night. The tour lasted until the end of January 1980 and Bon died a couple of weeks after coming off the road. So, there wasn't a lot of time for songwriting. They were a hard working band.
My guess would be, Bon substantially influenced BIB and the band just dropped his name from it for legal and financial reasons.
Not really. You offer an anecdote with no real proof. One that basically says the band has been lying all these years about Bon's contributions, or lack thereof, to Back In Black. Slagging your dead mate for no reason at all makes zero sense. Still pinging.
I'm only mentioning what I've heard a couple of times over the years. You seem to have a fetish for twisting what I've said into some other direction (i.e. "slagging your dead mate"). Did I claim to own the tape or directly know someone who does? No, I did not. I'm only saying that there have been whispers of something existing for quite a long time - when I say whispers, I'm talking about whispers before the days of message boards like this - brief conversation between a few people that owned very rare material. Have a productive evening.
Whatever lyric writing skills Brian has, they apparently dried up after 1988's Blow Up Your Video. The Young brothers wrote all the songs for the subsequent albums.
According to "AC/DC Maximum Rock & Roll" by Murray Engleheart and Arnaud Duriex, Bon Scott's band "Fang" opened for Brian Johnson's band Geordie on April 23rd (Torquay) and 24th (Plymouth), 1973. It says that Bon was impressed by Johnson's raspy voice, personality, and earthy nature, so I'd think it's safe to say they met during those shows. I just started the book though, so I don't know if it mentions any further meetings between the two later on.
I really doubt there's any big mystery or cover up here. They've said that Bon sat in on drums a few days before he died on embryonic versions of what became "Let Me Put My Love Into You" and "Have A Drink On Me" but that was all. I don't believe they were far enough along with the album that they would have recorded any demos with him on vocals yet. By all accounts he was supposed to be starting writing lyrics in earnest the last couple of days of his life, as they were just about ready to get going on the album properly, but we all know what happened... What Ian Jeffrey has said about the infamous notebook that Bon apparently left at his house, is quite revealing. A spiral notepad with a line or two on a page on even a couple of words on one page, one of which he would cross out and replace. Little scraps of paper with one sentence on. i imagine he was a lot more meticulous than anyone would assume. They've also said some titles were already in place. "What Do You Do For Money Honey" for example was apparently George Young's and dated from the Powerage sessions. When asked about lyrics/composing in one of the interviews from Let There Be Rock The Movie, Malcolm Young says, "mainly music titles - lyrics we leave to Bon". So I wouldn't be surprised if some of the titles were already in place. Also given that they would of had a good idea how Bon would have treated the songs and written lyrics, they were written as a group effort (Mutt Lange included) with Bon in mind (obviously given the circumstances) and turned out the way they did for those reasons. The album as a whole is after all a tribute to him.
I remember reading interviews with the band years ago and I'm almost certain they said at least a portion of the album's music was written prior to Bon dying. That could mean, of course, just the basic framework of the "song" i.e. a couple riffs and chords for a chorus. How much time they had to write when touring is a good point - I don't know about their practices - some bands write on the road, a snippet here, a snippet there. I also think the band was at their peak during that period so, by virtue of riding the crest of their creative wave, it's certainly also possible that they banged out a classic in short order. If I was a betting man, I'd bet it's a combination of the two - chunks of songs done prior to Bon's death, the majority shortly thereafter.
That's really the issue, no? Also, when you listen to the songs, sometimes, its so easy to picture Bon singing them... they just seem like Bon songs... whereas something like Sink the Pink does not... the stuff that came after seems like a caricature..
Well, the rest of Brian's work did come in the 80s (BIB was on the cusp). Many a great 70s band lost their way in that era. There's no proof either way, but I really think that Back in Black was an album born of very special circumstances. They were challenged and had something to prove. I'd argue that they got lazy after that (in terms of songwriting), and succumbed to 80s excess (which is a very different beast then 70s excess!).
There are stories about Bon proudly showing his lyric notebook to friends shortly before his death and one person in particular swears he remembers a few key lines from "You Shook Me All Night Long" in there. I believe it was in Mojo magazine and they interviewed the guy who discovered his body.
My memory is probably off, but I could swear it was more than one person who made the claim about the lyric notebook. Either way, I much prefer the Bon albums, but Brian Johnson always seemed like a decent down-to-earth likeable guy.
I think the music was almost finished. Perhaps Bon had written some lyrics, but they were not used - most likely incomplete. I am pretty sure the Young Bros would have used them and credited Bon, if they were ready to go.
Yet, you contribute to those whispers. Is there an AC/DC "truthers" web-site or have all the whisperers vanished under mysterious circumstances? If I have a "fetish", it's for facts.
If you've got issues with people feeling differently than you about something - whether it's based on instinct, supposition, fact or whatever else - I truly don't care. Feel free to send me a PM if you'd like to proceed any further. Could you please move on now?
That's a good question. But I can't help but feel that it's not the only question to ask. I have twice lost bandmates, and I can tell you that it has a huge effect on creativity, for better or worse. You have to put that energy somewhere, and for a musician, it's best to put that energy into celebrating the musician that you lost, that contributed to your work. It's a terrible experience, but when close friends celebrate their lost friend, they can produce music that would make their friend proud. That's how I see "Back in Black." It was an anomaly, an honest celebration of Bon Scott.
This site says that the official story goes that Bon Scott spent February before he died writing songs for AC DC's new album... I'd never heard that was the official story and wonder if it even is.. http://glam-racket.blogspot.com/2010/02/30-years-after-death-of-bon-scott.html I remain very skeptical that Back in Black has no Bon Scott influence..another reason is that the idea that they would record only the exact number of songs for each album and have no leftovers/other attempts they discussed doesn't ring true.... more likely is that there were other attempts/ideas discussed during say Highway to Hell and previous albums that ended up being left off/not fully realized... from what I understand a lot of bands will go back to the old attempts and keep working on them and then they make the cut for a subsequent album..t his seems far more likely than the idea that ACDC operated in a vacumn and simply started from scratch for Back in Black.. This theory i think is given some credence bythe fact that If You Want Blood was the title of a live album before the song of the same name made its presence on an actual album. It is more likely that they had talked about a song of the title , not finished it but decided to use it for a live album than the other way around (they titled the live album that and then wrote a song for it) at least that is the way i see it... it just seems very very unlikely to me that they would have put together back in black so quickly from scratch with a new singer... also keeping in ,mind that the producer was the same as highway to hell - to me- adds some validity to the possibiity that there would be some carryover from the highway to hell sessions such as leftover songs/ideas etc. and of course the other very compelling reasons are as stated before: the song lyrics in some cases just sound like bon scott songs and the fact brian johnson is just not a good lyric writer if you look at what he was able to muster subsquently... if he was a good lyric writer why would the young brothers basically push him to the side and start doing it themselves? one last thought... have a drink on me... it just seems in poor taste that they would go and write a lyric like that , for an album meant as a tribute to bon scott, in light of the circumstances of his passing.. to me it seems more likely they had something like it, with those lyrics, already in hand and simply decided it was too good to pass up.. thats different from trying to write something like that from scratch..different from making a willful effort to write something like that. i realize i'm repeating some stuff and don't have any real evidence... i see nothing wrong with speculating or trying to think about it though..
