Nevertheless, as much as I love Gunners, I just don't find them iconic in the way that AC/DC are - possibly because no member of AC/DC has publicly gone crazy Broadway-style the way Axl Rose has, which is not to dismiss the multiply orgasmic qualities of You Could Be Mine.
And I'd been drunkenly burbling to Sarah about what a Zen koan You (Shook Me All Night Long) is. It's about fucking. One particular incident of fucking. It describes the personal qualities of the co-respondent that resulted in said fucking being particularly memorable. It has 3 chords, possibly less. It has the lines "Working double time/on the seduction line", which is unusually clever for an AC/DC song.
And it is surprising - although perhaps it shouldn't be - how well the song works for ladies. I mean, lady singers. Some of them change the lyrics slightly ("he was the best damn lover I have ever seen"), some don't bother. Some of the artists below do faithful-ish rock versions, others, like Bing Ji Ling, reggae it the fuck up. The Tights run it through Emotional Rescue-era Stones. They are all brilliant.
"This is gonna be a fuckin' drunken mess, and we're not even drunk" - Matt Nathanson's bar-room singalong is so joyous you'll wish you were there.
Do you remember "Diamond" Dave Lee Roth's version of "Just A Gigolo"? Like that.
Now it starts getting weird. I used the word reggae about this one, but to be honest, I'm wondering if Tiny Tim should have covered this instead of Highway to Hell.
Not to be confused with the 70s punk rockers, The Tights from Philadelphia run through the jungle with this one. Modded to accommodate heterosexual women.
I didn't like Arab Strap's version when I first heard it, but it has a certain endearing drunkenness to it, like a Scottish Shane McGowan.
Tori Amos. You know what to expect here.
Necrology's version is fucking brilliant - a Cookie Monster version which doesn't lose any of the fun of the original. Taken from the compilation For Those About To Rot, a tribute album with AC/DC songs by black metal, thrash, prog and hair metal bands.
And, of course, no compilation of this song would be complete without Canada's finest export after Katy Beaton. Rockists claimed the universe would fold in on itself because of this performance, but Celine is having a ball and it's a lot less tragic than the version with Steven Tyler where Angus Young looks exactly like the head of our Freedom of Information unit. Find it yourself on YouTube - I'm too sad.
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