ACDC lead guitarist, Angus Young, has revealed that the idea for their hugely successful song, ‘Highway to Hell’, actually came down to a good old toilet epiphany.
Now, if you’re not familiar with the term, according to the ever-trusty Urban Dictionary, a toilet epiphany is a “place where thoughts bloom. Where you can go to clear your mind and get everything in order.”
Seems that, like many Urban Dictionary contributors, Young also uses the loo for some creative thinking time. The revelation has come about during a chat between Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Angus Young and [ACDC’s] Brian Johnson.
Speaking to Lowe of the creation of the signature song, ‘Highway to Hell’, Young said: “we had started with the Highway to Hell album … we’d been in Miami, and we’d been in a rehearsal room and that’s what we were doing.”
“We were putting together new tracks. And we’d been there a couple of weeks and we were going a bit slow. And then I had come in one day with [my brother Malcolm] and just before we got in, I said, ‘I’ve got a good idea in my head.’”
“So I got in and he came in, and I started playing the beginning, the intro. Malcolm got behind the drums and he said, ‘Right, you let me know when you hear the downbeat, the first downbeat of what you want,’” he added.
“So he came in with the beat. That’s how we set it up. But I didn’t have anything to sing. And he was saying to me, ‘Well, have you got something you can come up with?’ And I said, ‘Okay, give me a few minutes.’”
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“And I went to the toilet, and then I was in the toilet and I was there and I’m sitting and thinking. And I’m just sitting on the throne, more or less, and then I go, ‘I think I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. I’ve got the idea in my head.’”
“And then I came in there and I said, ‘I’ve got it. Highway to Hell’ — and I was over the chords that we had tried out through a chorus. And he went, ‘Yeah, that’ll work.’ And he said, ‘If we spread it out a bit into full singing thing.’ So he came up with a spread of it, [singing] ‘Highway to hell’.”
And there you have it, the incredibly wholesome story of how one of the most famous Australian songs ever was created.
Have a listen to the masterpiece below:
