By Brad Gallagher
As the story goes:
Back in the early 1980’s, Billy Idol was invited to a birthday party for one of the members of the Rolling Stones. At one point during the party he noticed Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ron Wood passing a bottle back and forth and drinking from it.
Billy Idol could not read the label on the bottle from where he stood, so he slowly worked his way closer to the group to see if he could figure out what they were drinking. As the bottle was passed between the men he was finally able to make out what looked like a confederate soldier riding away on a horse. And eventually he was able to read the words on the label; “Rebel Yell”.
He thought that it was a “made up” drink, so he asked the three men if it was. They told him that it was not, and he asked them if they would ever think of using “Rebel Yell” as a song title. They looked back and forth at each other for a moment and simply replied, “no”.
“Rebel Yell” went on to become both a song title and an album title, and one of Billy Idol’s biggest hits.
AS THE STORY GOES 