Baby start rockin’, baby start rollin’
Fix your hair up right
Put on your best dress, look real nice
‘Cause I’m takin’ you out tonight
You’re lookin’ real good and it’s about time
That me’n’you go out on the town
Shut those others down
Watch out for me now, I’m gettin’ real hot
Baby gimme this one chance
We’re gonna go down to the rock’n’roll joint
And show the world how to dance
I’m workin’ all week, I’m up to my head in shice
Been waitin’ all week for you
I’ll show you what I’m gonna do
I’m what you call a rock’n’roll bastard
You either love me or you hate me
I’m the guy your mom warned you about
Oh yeah, a rock’n’roll bastard
Get into my car, girl, we’re goin’ for a ride
Tonight I’ll show you how to fly
We’re gonna have one hell of a time tonight
A guy like me, your money can’t buy
We’re gonna walk down the street and have the world by the tush
Don’t care what the people say
Baby you made my day
I’m what you call a rock’n’roll bastard ...
The rock’n’roll joint is full of smoke
Lovers in the corners makin’ out between tokes
The dance floor’s full of new-wave valentinos
None of those guys is as good as me, no!
You tell me you’re hot now, we’ll go back to the bar
You tell me that you love me and we’re gonna go far
Lemme take you home now, everything is all right
We’re gonna make it, baby, till the end of the night
I’m what you call a rock’n’roll bastard ...
The morning’s here, the sun’s shinin’ through
I look into the morning light
I tell you I love you, I know that’s what you want
That our love will last more than a night
‘Cause I been waitin’ for a girl like you
To come into my life
Don’t carve it all up with your knife
I should be sleepin’ but it’s too hard to try
When a night becomes a day
But if I don’t have you, I’ll have no need
To go to sleep anyway
I shouldn’t be bitchin’, I shouldn’t be cryin’
‘Cause life’s been good to me
But I ain’t livin’, and I ain’t dyin’
And that’s the way it’ll always be
I’m what you call a rock’n’roll bastard ...
©2023 The Hesh Inc.
This one goes all the way back to my junior year in high school. I had just transferred from the small-town hole in the ground where I had spent my freshman and sophomore years to a new school in the big city, Jerusalem, and I was setting my sights on bigger things. I was on my own, out of my parents' shadows, and I wanted to be a rock'n'roll star. I wanted to put a band together and perform the music that I loved. Only thing is, I had absolutely no idea how to go about this, and I also had no real idea of how things worked in the bigger world. I just had a head full of fantasies of how I imagined they were, or ought to have been.
The first weekend I stayed on campus was in October 1981. I had heard, not long before I switched schools, of a newly opened American-style rock club called JBR, and that Saturday night, I set out to find the place. Having no address or directions, I never found it, but I ended up at the corner of King George and Ben Hillel Streets in downtown Jerusalem, where the language heard on the streets was English because it was, at the time, the main hangout of English-speaking students who had come to spend their years-in-Israel. I hung out for several hours, even meeting some people I hadn't seen since I had moved to Israel from Long Island several years earlier. But I didn't find the elusive JBR that night.
I walked all the way back from downtown to my dorm in one of the outlying neighborhoods, and churning through my mind was a mishmosh of the 'album rock' that was heard at the time: Whitesnake's "Fool for Your Lovin," Rainbow's "I Surrender," Pink Floyd's "Young Lust," and a few more of that ilk. It wasn't quite what I would call "my music" but it was what was out there in the early 80s, if you were not interested in disco, punk, or new wave.
I made it back to my bed at around 1:00 am, and woke up at some indeterminate time the next morning with the groove from Billy Joel's "Stiletto" throbbing in my head ... a hangover without having gotten drunk the night before. The beat mixed in my mind with those other songs, and with some of my clueless rocker-wannabe lyrics, voilà ... "Rock'n'Roll Bastard" was born. And I still don't know whether the title refers more to the character singing the song, or the song itself, illegitimately conceived from its album-rock progenitors.