Album: Fly Like an Eagle
Year: 1976
. . .
One of the more interesting things about Steve Miller’s big mid-1970s singles is how sparse they are. Except for the organ on the spacey white soul prog “Fly Like an Eagle” and the synths on “Swingtown,” they’re all just guitar, bass, and drums. And most of the time, Miller doesn’t even bother overdubbing a second guitar.
That the sparsest of all, 1976’s “Rock ‘n’ Me”, was a hit at all is a bit of anomaly for the times, given that in late 1976, the lusher productions of disco were beginning to top the charts, so it was competing with the likes of Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s The Night,” Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” and The Bee Gees “You Should Be Dancing” and Elton John’s and Kiki Dees “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Whatever you might think of the merits of those songs, they were full-blown productions.
No so much “Rock ‘n Me,” which starts out with a guitar fanfare that is nod and a wink to Free’s “All Right Now” and almost instantly settles into a Chuck Berry groove, over which Steve Miller talks about a love so strong that he’s even tempted to get gainful employment to keep it.
Well, I’ve been lookin’ real hard
And I’m tryin’ to find a job
But it just keeps gettin’ tougher every day
But I got to do my part, cause I know in my heart
I got to please my sweet baby, yeah
Why? Because she’s a great fuck, that’s why! And he wants to continue to fuck her.
So keep on rock’n me, baby
Keep on-a rock’n me, baby
Keep on-a rock’n me, baby
Keep on-a rock’n me, baby
I mean, unless you want to interpret it some other way, but I guarantee you that’s how it came across. In a later verse, Steve even lists all of the places he went looking for this great lay.
I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A
Northern California, where the girls are warm
So I could hear my sweet baby say
That’s quite a circuitous route, and couldn’t he have stopped somewhere in the midwest?
Outside of a cool bridge where they repeat the “All Right Now” opening motif while Steve also implore her to keep on “rockin'” him, “Rock ‘n Me” is incredibly slight, but it’s also incredibly catchy, as was the style of the times.
Which I guess is why it became Miller’s second #1 hit, sandwiched in between the aforementioned Chicago and Rod Stewart songs. And probably because of that success, and the follow-up success “Fly Like an Eagle” the song, which made it to #2 in March, 1977, Fly Like an Eagle the album became Miller’s all-time best-selling studio album.
“Rock ‘n’ Me”
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