{"id":671563,"date":"2026-05-29T05:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671563\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T05:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T05:48:15","slug":"this-george-thorogood-hit-was-a-direct-response-to-the-rolling-stones-start-me-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/671563\/","title":{"rendered":"This George Thorogood Hit Was a Direct Response to The Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cStart Me Up\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Necessity is the mother of invention, and that\u2019s especially true for artists carving their unique path in the ultra-competitive world of the music business. Some well-established necessities for succeeding in this industry include a solid brand, memorable sound, consistent work ethic, and, ideally, a hit song. George Thorogood had everything but the last one in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

Thorogood and his band, The Destroyers, had developed a reputation in the northeast United States for their blues-driven rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. But it wasn\u2019t until Thorogood went on tour with The Rolling Stones that he realized that a strong association with blues music just wasn\u2019t going to cut it.<\/p>\n

George Thorogood Was Inspired by The Rolling Stones<\/p>\n

Speaking to The Guardian in May 2026<\/a>, George Thorogood recalled watching the visceral reactions audience members had to The Rolling Stones while the two bands were touring together. Specifically, Thorogood watched the crowd light up, night after night, each time The Stones played \u201cStart Me Up\u201d<\/a>. \u201cI said, \u2018Man, we\u2019d better hurry up and write an original song with a catchy intro or, five years from now, people will go, \u2018Oh, yeah. George Thorogood. Wasn\u2019t he good at playing Chuck Berry or something?\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, up to that point, Thorogood and The Destroyers\u2019 bread and butter was old blues standards. So, it only made sense that the first original song with a catchy intro that the band wrote was a track that would go on to become synonymous with blues rock: \u201cBad To The Bone\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thorogood released \u201cBad To The Bone\u201d in 1982 on the album of the same name. The song quickly became the band\u2019s best-known hit, earning a Silver Certification in the United Kingdom and Gold Certification in the United States. From the quintessential blues lick that moves the song along to Thorogood\u2019s stuttering vocal delivery, \u201cBad To The Bone\u201d was one of those songs that sounded like it had been around for decades.<\/p>\n

Capitalizing on the Male Fantasy Worked in the Band\u2019s Favor<\/p>\n

\u201cBad To The Bone\u201d has more than a catchy melody. It has an attitude\u2014one that most of us secretly wish we could embody more often. Who wouldn\u2019t want to walk around knowing that they\u2019re \u201cbad to the bone?\u201d Capitalizing on that leather-clad daydream was the secret element that gave the song its magic. In his interview with The Guardian, George Thorogood explained, \u201c\u2018Bad To The Bone\u2019 is a male fantasy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s face it,\u201d he continued. \u201cEvery guy wants to be bad\u2026that\u2019s the whole idea of the song. None of us in the band are tough guys. \u2018Bad To The Bone\u2019 brings out the lion in the mouse. But it\u2019s not to be taken that seriously. It\u2019s an over-masculine chuckle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by Larry Hulst\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Necessity is the mother of invention, and that\u2019s especially true for artists carving their unique path in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,293000,216,2156,1735],"class_list":["post-671563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-george-thorogood","tag-music","tag-rock-music","tag-the-rolling-stones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}