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What was the very first "Hard" Rock song?

post #1 of 31
9/15/05 at 12:14am
Thread Starter 
I was looking at Rolling Stone magazine's online listing of the top 500 songs ever, go to...

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto...as-player=true

...and it lists "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones as number 2. It states that it has that very high ranking partly since it ..."was the crossroads: the point at which the rickety jump and puppy love of early rock & roll became "rock"". I take that as saying it was the birth of "Hard Rock".

So what song in your opinion is the "first cause" of the word "Hard" in the "Hard Rock Cafe" so to speak...?????
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post #2 of 31
9/15/05 at 12:44am
Nice to see that Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Gene Vincent got their due.
EDIT: And once again I avoid being relevant in anyway to the topic.
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post #3 of 31
9/15/05 at 12:45am

Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" July 25, 1965

I will pick this to answer your question. Perhaps not chronologically, but in terms of music history, and ultimate influence (beginning with the Beatles, Hendrix, and the Byrds), this was the moment for the birth of hard rock. IMO.

Some new insights on this historic date: http://hub.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...327/1141/HUB05
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post #4 of 31
9/15/05 at 12:48am
I always considered Revolution by the Beatles as the first hard rock song.
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post #5 of 31
9/15/05 at 1:08am
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zepplin
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post #6 of 31
9/15/05 at 2:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by elrod-tom
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zepplin
You really think not until '69? Take for instance Spanish Castle Magic - IMO that's a heavier song. I'm not saying that's my pick, I don't know.

How about In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

Look what the Wikipedia entry says

"The song is significant in rock history because, together with Blue Cheer and Steppenwolf, it marks the point when psychedelic music produced heavy metal. Later 1970s heavy metal and progressive rock acts like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin owe much of their sound, and even more of their live acts, to this recording."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
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post #7 of 31
9/15/05 at 3:10am
Thread Starter 

That song was one of the first to do one thing.....

Quote:
Originally Posted by elrod-tom
Whole Lotta Love - Led Zepplin
...and that was to put sex with no holding back into a rock song....
Some might argue that one can not have real hard rock without sex in the picture, and going with that argument, one would have to agree with Whole Lottta Love as being he first hard rock song...
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post #8 of 31
9/15/05 at 3:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zeno333
So what song in your opinion is the "first cause" of the word "Hard" in the "Hard Rock Cafe" so to speak...?????
Maybe it's a silly question, but have you attempted to sort the Top 500 Songs list by YEAR? It's very telling. You'll see the rapid progression from '65 to '67.

Of course, there were isolated exceptions. Songs like "Shout" and "Louie, Louie" predated "Satisfaction" and such, but everyone got into the "hard rock" game in the mid-60s.
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post #9 of 31
9/15/05 at 3:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by zeno333
Some might argue that one can not have real hard rock without sex in the picture, and going with that argument, one would have to agree with Whole Lottta Love as being he first hard rock song...
"Get on top, really let me groove baby with uh just a little bit of spanish castle magic. yeah baby."

Granted most of the song just flirts with sexuality and is mostly a trip-out mishmash, but still, that one line doesn't seem terribly ambiguous.
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post #10 of 31
9/15/05 at 6:23am
You guys don't listen to gritty, dirty, thrashing Rockabilly classics of the 50s do you?

If 'hard rock' necessarily entails some kind of 60s-inspired psychedelic lyrical noodling and a six minute solo, I'll concede your conviction that it starts sometime after Mr Tambourine Man (or whatever). But you listen to a feller like Ronnie Self singing "This Must Be the Place" and you can hear the rockin'-rockin'-ganddaddy of every three-minute, three-chord punk song that came after.

http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/...Bop-A-Lena.htm
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post #11 of 31
9/15/05 at 7:40am
I would say Led Zeppelin, song would be however, Communications Breakdown, which was out on their first CD.
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post #12 of 31
9/15/05 at 9:22am
I'm going to have to say Link Wray. An awesome rockabilly guitar man, whom many have forgotten. A forerunner of the power chord.

Listen to Rumble or Ain't That Lovin You Baby
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post #13 of 31
9/15/05 at 10:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by BillyC
I'm going to have to say Link Wray. An awesome rockabilly guitar man, whom many have forgotten. A forerunner of the power chord.

Listen to Rumble or Ain't That Lovin You Baby
Right on for Link Wray! I know it's been said in one of the 'Origins of Punk' threads in this forum, but what many of the early punksters were doing in the 70s was reinventing the uncontrived urgency of rockabilly. Those lads knew everything about being bad before Jimmy Page had touched a guitar, much less a red snapper.
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post #14 of 31
9/15/05 at 11:36am
hmmm... like catachresis, i'll take the heretic view. it was the other way round.

the beatles and other boy bands BROUGHT puppy love and "pop music" to the rough and rocking world of chuck berry, jerry lee lewis, bill haley, gene vincent, eddie cochran and others. they had already rocked much harder than the bluesy early (brian jones) stones. maybe 'satisfaction' was the turning point, but the point is, it was the turning point BACK to rock after popular music had mellowed out for awhile.

rock'n'roll, rockabilly, garage rock: that was no puppy love, that was the devil
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post #15 of 31
9/15/05 at 12:04pm
I don't know about Hard Rock, but for the origins of Punk, I'd go back to "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks in 1964. Even the recording of that tune sounds so punk - that trashy little Elpico amp with the knitting needles stuck in it and slashed with razor blades lol!
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