Rock of All Ages
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| "Rock of All Ages" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single by Badfinger | |
| from the album Magic Christian Music | |
| A-side | "Come and Get It" |
| Released | 5 December 1969 |
| Recorded | 1969 |
| Length | 3:16 |
| Label | Apple |
| Songwriter(s) | Tom Evans Pete Ham Mike Gibbons |
| Producer(s) | Paul McCartney |
"Rock of All Ages" is a song written by Tom Evans, Pete Ham and Mike Gibbons that was first released on Badfinger's 1970 album Magic Christian Music. It was also released as the b-side to Badfinger's hit single "Come and Get It". The song was originally used as part of the soundtrack for the 1969 film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. The song was produced by Paul McCartney.
Evans told how the song originated:
There's a disco scene in The Magic Christian film where they had "Respect" by Aretha Franklin playing and we had to cover that with our song. We really didn't know what to do, do a "soul" thing or whatever. Well the time came for the recording and we didn't have a song together. McCartney comes in and says "Well, what've you got?" And we said "We don't really know." So he said "Well, what do you know that's really exciting?" I said "Well, we can do 'Long Tall Sally' in G". And he goes "G, okay!"
So we started to make up a song similar to "Long Tall Sally" in G. We just did the backing track. When it came time to do the vocal I was just floundering over it. He started to sing with me and we both kind of made it up. There's a great take of me and him singing it together. I said "You've got to use that on the record, please use that on the record." He said, "No, you go down and do it properly."[1]
Badfinger manager Bill Collins told a similar story:
To do "Rock of All Ages [McCartney] one day asked me what the boys do when they rave it up. I said "They're pretty good at "Long Tall Sally" so when he met us in the studio, he looked at young Tommy and said "I hear you're a bit of a raver on "Sally"; let's try that. Without ever making any demands on anybody, he just sat down at the piano, started into a bit of a 12-bar, and pulled the boys into it. Once they got rolling, he stood up and said "I've got to do some shopping for my missus; knock out some lyrics while I'm gone." They did, and actually, we finished the whole backing track in less than an hour.[2]