43 years ago, a rock staple began with an unexpected inspiration

Long before it became a defining hit of the hair metal era, one of its most beloved songs was shaped by an unlikely source 43 years ago.

Def Leppard was recording the second single for their breakthrough LP Pyromania when lead singer and songwriter Joe Elliott found himself in a quandary. He didn’t have a chorus for the song that would eventually become “Rock of Ages.”

The band was chugging through the album’s recording process, Ultimate Classic Rock reported, when they came to a standstill. Despite a push from their producer Robert “Mutt” Lange, there was no link to pull together the soon-to-be hard rock classic.

After the band exited the studio, a local church used it to record some vocals. They left a few of their hymn books behind. Then, inspiration hit.

“We came in the next day, and there were a couple of hymn books left behind, and one of them was in the control room. It was open to the hymn ‘Rock of Ages,'” Elliott said in an interview for the website Leppard Vault,

“I remember picking it up and looking at it, and Mutt must have been playing the chorus. It went past, and I looked at this thing, and I went, ‘How about this?’ I started singing ‘Rock of Ages,’ and he spins around in his chair, and whoever else was in the room went, ‘[Expletive] yeah! That’s great!’ So that’s how the chorus was born.”

One of the tune’s musicians was Thomas Dolby, who had a 1982 hit with the song “She Blinded Me With Science.” He was credited under the pseudonym Booker T. Boffin so as not to confuse listeners.

The song was anchored by Lange’s now-iconic count-in for the band. He used a gibberish set of words to catch their attention and begin the recording process, “Gunter, gleiben, glauchen, globen.”

“Rock of Ages” would peak at No. 16 on the Billboard charts in August 1983. It would remain a chart staple for 15 weeks.

The hard rock smash inspired a hit Broadway musical of the same name in 2009. Following, a film adaptation was created in 2012.

“Rock of Ages” was ranked No. 1 on the list of the 20 Greatest Hair Metal Anthems of All Time in 2015 by Louder.

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