page_title: Highway to Hell
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Highway to Hell / Composition
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: AC/DC in der Ulster Hall, Belfast. Angus Young (links) und Bon Scott (rechts). English: AC/DC at the Ulster Hall, Belfast. Angus Young (left) and Bon Scott (right). Français&#160;: AC/DC à l'Ulster Hall, Belfast. Angus Young (gauche) et Bon Scott (droite).
context_page_description: Highway to Hell is the sixth studio album by Australian hard rock band AC/DC, released on 27 July 1979. It was the band's fifth studio album released internationally and the sixth to be released in Australia. It was the last album featuring lead singer Bon Scott, who died early the following year on 19 February 1980.
context_section_description: The album's most famous song is its title track. From the outset, Atlantic Records hated the idea of using the song as the album title, with Angus recalling to Guitar World's Alan Di Perna in 1993:
  [J]ust because you call an album Highway to Hell you get all kinds of grief. And all we'd done is describe what it's like to be on the road for four years, like we'd been. A lot of it was bus and car touring, with no real break. You crawl off the bus at four o'clock in the morning, and some journalist's doing a story and he says, "What would you call an AC/DC tour?" Well, it was a highway to hell. It really was.  When you're sleeping with the singer's socks two inches from your nose, that's pretty close to hell.
  In a 2003 interview with Bill Crandall of Rolling Stone, Angus recalled the genesis of the song:
  We were in Miami and we were flat broke. Malcolm and I were playing guitars in a rehearsal studio, and I said, "I think I have a good idea for an intro", which was the beginning of "Highway to Hell". And he hopped on a drum kit and he banged out the beat for me. There was a guy in there working with us and he took the cassette we had it on home and gave it to his kid, and his kid unraveled it [laughs]. Bon was good at fixing broken cassettes, and he pasted it back together. So at least we didn't lose the tune.
  The words to "Highway to Hell" took on a new resonance when Scott drank himself to death in 1980. AllMusic's Steve Huey observes:
  The lyrics displayed a fierce, stubborn independence in his choice of lifestyle ("Askin' nothin', leave me be"; "nobody's gonna slow me down"), but not really loneliness (of hell: "goin' down! party time! my friends are gonna be there too"). It's ironic that Scott seems most alive when facing death with the fearless bravado of "Highway to Hell", yet it's undeniably true, especially given his positively unhinged performance. The untutored ugliness of his voice; the playfulness with which he used it to his advantage; the wails, growls, screeches, and scratches - all these qualities combine to give the song an unbridled enthusiasm without which it might take on an air of ambivalence.
  Scott's lyrics on Highway to Hell deal almost exclusively with lust ("Love Hungry Man", "Girls Got Rhythm"), sex ("Beating Around the Bush", "Touch Too Much", "Walk All Over You"), and partying on the town ("Get It Hot", "Shot Down in Flames").  In his 2006 band memoir, Murray Engelheart reveals that Scott felt the lyrics of songs like "Gone Shootin'" from the preceding Powerage were "simply too serious."
  "Touch Too Much" had been first recorded in July 1977, with a radically different arrangement and lyrics from its Highway to Hell incarnation.  The final version was performed by Scott and AC/DC on the BBC music show Top of the Pops a few days before the singer's death in 1980.  The song "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" borrowed the title of the band's live album from the previous year and stemmed from Scott's response to a journalist at the Day on the Green festival in July 1978: when asked what they could expect from the band, Scott replied, "Blood".
  The opening guitar riff of "Beating Around the Bush" has been referred to by journalist Phil Sutcliffe as "almost a tribute ... a reflection, I hesitate to say a copy" of Oh Well by Fleetwood Mac.
  Asked "What's the worst record you've ever made?", Angus replied, "There's a song on Highway to Hell called 'Love Hungry Man' which I must have written after a night of bad pizza – you can blame me for that."
  Perhaps the album's most infamous song is "Night Prowler", mainly due to its association with serial killer Richard Ramírez.  In June 1985, a highly publicised murder case began, revolving around Ramírez, who was responsible for brutal killings in Los Angeles. Nicknamed the "Night Stalker", Ramírez was a fan of AC/DC, particularly "Night Prowler". Police also claimed that Ramirez was wearing an AC/DC shirt and left an AC/DC hat at one of the crime scenes. During the trial, Ramírez often muttered "Hail Satan" and showed off the pentagram carved into his palm. This 
caption: Former vocalist Bon Scott (centre) pictured with guitarist Angus Young (left) and bassist Cliff Williams (back), performing at the Ulster Hall in August 1979
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