Page 20 - Classic Rock (February 2020)

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS

Argent

God Gave Rock And Roll To You

Now a rock anthem, it was written under the storm cloud of

cancer, and enjoyed a superstar second wind. “I don’t care that
most people think it’s a Kiss song,” says its writer, Russ Ballard.

Words: Henry Yates t was early 1973, and as Russ Ballard But he had misgivings about it:
sat down at the piano in his parents’ “Rod thought the song should be
Hertfordshire home, the Argent slower,” he says. “The recorded
Iguitarist felt the stirring of an version dragged, to me.
emotion he thought he’d lost. “I felt “The song didn’t do a lot for my
blissful when I started writing God Gave career,” he adds, “because I decided
Rock And Roll To You,” he reflects, “and that to leave Argent around then – I was
was the opposite of how I’d felt the year gone by 1974. We were getting very
before. My parents had both been really ill; jazzy, when I was more about
my dad had prostate cancer, my mum had rock’n’roll.”
bowel cancer, at the same time. I’d felt so For almost two decades, God
low. During that period, I remember Gave Rock And Roll To You lived
writing I Don’t Believe In Miracles, and at the a quiet existence as a semi-
end of the song I just put my head down successful rock anthem,
on the piano keys and cried.” periodically exhumed by the cover
Work had been Ballard’s lifeline through versions of Christian rockers Petra,
those hard times, with the songwriter and Dennis Greaves’s The Truth.
typically getting home from Argent gigs at Then in the early 90s, Ballard was
three in the morning, then rising at dawn sitting in the lobby of a US record
to wrench out his feelings in song. His label, when former Blondie bassist
band – led by and named after former Nigel Harrison stopped and told
Zombies keyboard player Rod Argent – him about an upcoming movie
was riding high, and Ballard was already called Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the
“making good money”, with 1972’s hit sequel to a hit comedy about two
single Hold Your Head Up reaching No.5 in rock-obsessed slackers, played by
the US and UK. But it was God Gave Rock Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter.
And Roll To You that represented the end “Nigel told me he was collating the
OVER THE
RAINBOW of his own dark night of the soul. soundtrack, and he’d suggested
Russ Ballard’s soon- “It was wonderful to feel myself come God Gave Rock And Roll To You for
to-be-released tenth out of that depression,” Ballard recalls. the final scene. They tried out a few
solo album, It’s Good “I felt so ‘up’. It probably only took twenty bands, then came back and said:
To Be Here, revisits
another of his classic minutes to write it. I’d always liked gospel. ‘Kiss are going to do it.’” Argent in the mid-70s: (l-r)
compositions, with With the lyric, I was saying that we live on By this time Ballard had already Bob Henrit, Jim Rodford,
a wistful, piano-led this incredible planet, and when you find made the acquaintance of Gene Russ Ballard and Rod Argent.
take on Since You’ve
Been Gone. a passion, this world makes sense. Simmons and co.
“I loved the Rainbow Whereas, if you settle for a job to pay the “One night in about 1973, we were tease’, listeners were urged to ‘put your faith
version – Graham bills, it’s very sad. playing in New York with Wishbone Ash in a loud guitar’.
Bonnet has always
had the most amazing “The song was written on this heavy and Kiss,” he remembers. “They weren’t Ballard approved. “That new lyric was
voice,” he says. “But Eavestaff upright piano I’d been given for known at the time. At the sound-check, more universal, perfect for what Kiss
I sat at the piano and my twenty-first birthday,” he continues. they weren’t in any slap. That evening, were doing,” he says. “Funnily enough,
started to play, and left
out the second chord in “That might seem strange for a rock song when they came on, I was in the wings, when I wrote the song, it was about the
every sequence, which – but I wrote Since You’ve Been Gone on and suddenly Kiss walk up in their make- speed Kiss made it. I don’t mind that most
made it very different. a piano as well. As a kid I’d learnt classical up and platform heels, about seven-and-a- people think it’s a Kiss song. Apparently,
Y’know, it’s such a sad, piano. As soon as my mum and dad left half feet tall. And it was a brilliant show.” Gene said on the TV show School Of Rock:
fearful lyric. And
although the Rainbow the room, I was playing Jerry Lee Lewis.” The tweaked title of Kiss’s version, God ‘When I wrote God Gave Rock And Roll To
version is up-tempo Ballard presented the song to Argent Gave Rock & Roll To You II, denoted that the You…’ But at least the royalties are good.
and loud and it’s got at the band’s rehearsal space in St Albans, New Yorkers had raised the tempo and God knows how much money that song
a big riff, when you
play the song really and marvelled as they cooked it up to the rewritten the verse lyric. Now, instead of has made me, but it’s probably bought me
slow on the piano, with seven-minute version that appears on the quaint instruction to ‘love your friend and my house.”
the cellos, it makes it their 1973 album In Deep (the song also love your neighbour/Don’t step on snails, don’t Although Kiss reached No.4 in the UK
really quite dark.”
reached UK No.18 on the singles chart). climb in trees/Love Cliff Richard but please don’t with their version, in January 1992, for GETTY

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