AC/DC has been showing up in some fairly odd places lately. As far as I can tell, it started a few weeks ago when BBC News ran a story about how Total Guitar Magazine judged Celine Dion’s rendition of “You Shook Me All Night Long” to be the worst cover song of ALL TIME. At first, we thought that maybe this distinction seemed a little harsh and emphatic, but then we found THIS!
God help us all. The AC/DC headlines improved a few days later at Glastonbury when Jay-Z used the classic riff from “Back In Black” as the backing track for an inspired mashup of “99 Problems” (the inspiration most likely being Noel Gallagher’s insistence that he didn’t belong at a rock festival). Much better.
Next came more odd news from the hell-loving gang’s stomping grounds of Australia. A July 2nd article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph reported that “Highway To Hell” has become a popular funeral song down under. Wow, okay, nothing like spitting into the wind….
Of course, NOTHING was as surreal or bizarre as what I came across in a recent episode of ABC News Primetime: The Outsiders. In it, a predictably chirpy silver-haired reporter - Jay Schadler - follows a group of Amish teens as they battle to choose between sticking with the Amish faith or breaking free and embracing a modern lifestyle. This period in their lives is known as rumspringa, or “running around”, and takes place during adolescence. During this time, Amish teens are encouraged to explore life outside of their close-knit communities (read: beer, parties, iPods, cell phones, concerts) with the expectation that they will come back to the Amish faith after having weighed all their options. The only problem is these kids LOVE AC/DC!
One of the teens interprets his own rumspringa as an invitation to outfit his Amish horse-drawn buggy with a powerful subwoofer stereo system. When Schadler rides along with the teen and asks him to test the stereo out, he eagerly obliges by blasting “Back In Black” from the buggy’s stereo. I wish more than anything I had footage from this; it was an incredibly surreal moment, but not isolated.
Later in the program, we meet another teen in the throes of rumspringa who decides to run away from his community and pursue a “normal life.” Yet, he cannot fully separate himself from his former life and so decides to pay his old neighborhood a visit in his car (a big Amish no no). It is then, fueled by the devil’s music blasting from his car stereo, he impulsively turns the song up to a deafening level and drives threateningly close to a group of Amish people on the side of the road to frighten them. He’s the black sheep, the angry pariah, the forgotten man, and his soundtrack for this escapade? AC/DC’s “Money Talks” of course.
If there’s anything to be learned from all of this, it’s clearly that Celine Dion cannot enjoy AC/DC (if you skipped watching it before, please watch it now), but the following people can (and must): Jay-Z, dead Aussies tempting fate, Amish people in heat (or rumspringa, same thing).
Simple enough, right? Hells bells!
*top image found HERE
