By Brad Gallagher:
I recently had the “opportunity” to drive from Alaska to Texas. You see, my daughter, who has lived in Alaska for the past five years, got a new job in Texas and needed to move all of her belongings there. Most of it was easy enough to just load into a shipping container and ship, but her car was a different story. It needed to be driven. It was 4200 miles from her house in Alaska to her new home in Texas, and the drive was going to take a full week. But, since she needed to get to Texas quickly to get settled into her new home and start her new job, she flew and I was elected to drive the car (along with her dog, “Mabel”) And, of course, I was happy to do so.
Mabel and I started out early on a Sunday morning and headed out on the open road. At first the miles flew by quickly as we took in the scenery and all of the wildlife that Alaska and Canada have to offer. We saw amazing mountains, Moose, Bear, Elk, and even a herd of Bison crossing the road right in front of us. But as the first few days went by everything started to look the same. Boredom began to settle in and since Mabel was not much of a conversationalist, I resorted to loud rock music to keep my interest. I heard a lot of great driving music on that trip like “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf, and “Radar Love” by Golden Earing, but my favorite songs were the Highway songs. “Life Is A Highway” by Tom Cochrane, “Highway Star” by Deep Purple, “Rockin’ Down The Highway” by The Doobie Brothers, and of course my favorite song of all time, “Ventura Highway” by America.
But when AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” began to play, a number of thoughts went through my mind in rapid succession. First, since AC/DC is one of my wife’s favorite bands I began to think of her and how much I missed her while being away that week. And then I started to wonder if I was actually driving on the highway to hell, since it seemed like it would never end. I also reflected on the “classic rock legend” that claims AC/DC wrote Highway To Hell in response to the song Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppelin. Whether that is true or not we may never know, but many people stick strongly to that story. Still others believe it has a deep spiritual meaning. But my thoughts finally settled on the true origins of the song and the road that inspired it.
As the story goes:
As kids, Angus and Malcom Young’s family immigrated to Australia from Scotland as part of a national program aimed at getting people to move there by assisting them with their travel expenses. The Youngs were a musical family and Angus and Malcom played in their older brother George’s band as they were growing up in Australia. After that, Angus played with a local band named Kantuckee and then, in 1973, at the age of 18 Angus formed a band called AC/DC along with his brother Malcom, Colin Burgess, Larry Van Kriedt, and lead singer Dave Evans. The name AC/DC came from a label on his sister’s sewing machine, by the way.
AC/DC had some minor success with Dave Evans as lead singer, but in 1974 they decided to replace him with a new singer named Bon Scott who remained frontman of the band until his untimely death in 1980. Ironically, Scott’s family also immigrated from Scotland, although about eleven years prior to the Young family, and settled in Fremantle in Western Australia. Fremantle is located on the coast about eleven miles west of Perth, and there is a road which connects Fremantle and Perth called Canning Highway. It is similar to the highways we have here in the US in that it is a four lane divided highway for most of it’s length, but unlike most US highways it has a speed limit of only 37 mph. But despite the relatively low speed limit Canning Highway had a reputation for having frequent accidents, and it was due to these many accidents that in 1979, the locals nicknamed it the “highway to hell”.
Canning highway was traveled quite frequently by Scott in those days since it led to all of his favorite pubs and hotels, such as the locally famous Raffles Hotel. And it became the inspiration for Scott and the Young brothers to write the song “Highway To Hell”. So, it was the Canning highway along with Angus Young’s frequent references to their busy touring schedule at that time being a “Highway To Hell” that led to the writing of one of AC/DC’s most famous songs, and the title track of the album that featured it. As an album, “Highway To Hell” reached #17 on the US Billboard 200 charts and the single reached #47 on the Billboard top 100.
In Australia, however, it did even better, reaching #24 as a single, and #13 as an album. In fact, the Australians loved AC/DC, and Bon Scott, so much that on March 1, 2020 they closed a six mile stretch of the Canning highway and paid tribute to local boy Bon Scott, on the 40th anniversary of his passing. It was the last day of the Perth festival that year and over 150,000 people flooded those six miles of road for the aptly named “Highway To Hell” celebration which featured 6 different AC/DC tribute bands from around the world on flatbed trucks cruising up and down Canning highway playing all the bands greatest hits. That would have been a sight to see.
So, whatever your thoughts are on the true meaning of the song Highway To Hell, at least you know it’s origins. Come back and see me next time right here on As The Story Goes.
Link to “Highway To Hell” Live in 1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hhlQU0zDpA
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