I think Kiss spent time getting that tempo absolutely spot on.” Russ Ballard’s album It’s Good To Be Here is out now via BMG. I always thought ours was too slow and while we were rehearsing it I said it should be more ‘up’. But they got it right because they made it a real rock song and they sped it up.
I was trying to be, what I am, very loving and funny – I was trying to express my feelings more than anything. I mean, ‘Put your faith in a loud guitar…’ is more rock ‘n’ roll. “Kiss changed the first verse but I think they got it right.
If you haven’t got the right lyrics, it ain’t gonna be a hit anyway, so say something in a different way and use the same chords. But I think the key is in the lyric, I believe it’s the soul of the song. In the 60s it was E, A and B7 – Summer Lovin’, Twist And Shout. “I was always using those chords, they give me a buzz – they’ve been on thousands of No 1s and always seem to work, like A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
How I wrote ‘God Gave Rock And Roll To You’ in Songwriting Magazine Autumn 2020 So I thought, ‘Love your friend, love your neighbour / Love your life and love your labours / Never too late to change your mind / Don’t step on snails, don’t climb in trees / Love Cliff Richard but please don’t tease…’ I remember, in 1973, when I wrote God Gave Rock And Roll To You, I felt so happy, so good and life was like spring. Even when it’s in a major key I try to make it sound like it’s in a minor! That reflected my moods at the time. I used to write everything in a minor key, I just used to feel for minor keys. With the title, I got the buzz because I had the idea – I was feeling so good at the time. “I knew we had an album to do – it was going to be on In Deep – so I was writing a lot about my thoughts at the time and feeling optimistic. So when he asked me to be in the band, it gave me a profile and Rod asked, ‘Have you got any songs?’ That was a very sophisticated song, chords, mood, production, arrangement… everything. US chart position: –“The strange thing is, when Rod Argent was in The Zombies, he was writing at 17 years old and coming up with She’s Not There, which was No 1 in America and Top 20 here.
Over to Russ to explain how the power ballad resulted from a period of optimism and a recurring love of minor keys…
GOD GAVE ROCK AND ROLL TO YOU ORIGINAL MOVIE
It was their third UK Top 40 single, but the song also reached the Top 10 in 1991 when it was covered by the American hard rock band Kiss, after featuring on the soundtrack to the movie Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. The Hertfordshire-born musician’s outstanding back catalogue has been mined and recorded by everyone from Rainbow to Hot Chocolate to America to Elkie Brooks to Three Dog Night and many, many more.īut his own first hit record was 1973’s God Gave Rock And Roll To You with Argent, the British rock group he founded with the former Zombies keyboardist Rod Argent. Since You’ve Been Gone, You Can Do Magic, New York Groove, So You Win Again, No More The Fool, Liar… Russ Ballard’s songs are on permanent heavy rotation the world over. The feelgood anthem that became a hit in two decades for two different bands was inspired by Cliff Richard Aaron Slater on 22 August 2022 at 12:18 am
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