top of page

AC/DC - For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)


AC/DC - For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) - Meaning of the song


AC/DC - For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)

This is the title track to the AC/DC album that followed Back In Black, one of the best-selling albums of all time. Back In Black never hit #1 on the US albums chart, but For Those About To Rock did (their 2008 release Black Ice also hit the top spot).


The phrase that this song's title is based on is "For those about to die..." This is a variation on the phrase "We who are about to die salute you," which is what Roman gladiators would say to the high rulers (typically the emperor), before fighting to the death in the arena. AC/DC guitarist Angus Young got the idea after reading a book Bon Scott gave him about the gladiator games in ancient Rome. Young remembers the book as For Those About To Die We Salute You by Robert Graves, but Graves never wrote a book with that title. It's likely that the book was Those About to Die by Daniel Mannix.


For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) - Lyrics


Oh, yeah, yeah

Yeah, oh

Oh, oh

We roll tonight

To the guitar bite

Yeah, yeah

Oh


Stand up and be counted

For what you are about to receive

We are the dealers

We'll give you everything you need

Hail-hail to the good times

'Cause rock has got the right of way

We ain't no legend, ain't no cause

We're just living for today


For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, we salute you


We rock at dawn, on the front line

Like a bolt right out of the blue

The sky's alight with the guitar bite

Heads will roll and rock tonight


For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, we salute you, yes, we do

For those about to rock, we salute you

Oh, salute


Oh, yeah

Oh, yes

Load up


We're just a battery for hire with a guitar fire

Ready and aimed at you

Pick up your balls and load up your cannon

For a twenty-one gun salute


For those about to rock— fire

(We salute you)

Oh, for those about to rock

(We salute you)

Oh, those about to rock— fire

(We salute you)

Oh— fire

We salute you

We salute you

Come on

Oh


For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, we salute you

For those about to rock, oh, we salute you

Shoot, shoot

Shoot, shoot

Oh, for those who give and those who take

Doing your time and those on the rank

We salute you, yeah

We salute you

We salute you

We salute you

Fire!


AC/DC - For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) - Live


留言


bottom of page