For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)

"For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" is a song by the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. The song was first released on AC/DC's eighth studio album For Those About to Rock We Salute You in 1981, and later as a single in 1982. The single's B-side contains an edited live version of "Let There Be Rock", recorded in Landover, Maryland, in late-1981. The video to "For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" was filmed at that same concert.

The song was later included on AC/DC's first soundtrack album, Who Made Who, released in 1986 for the Stephen King film Maximum Overdrive.

The title and central lyric of the song are based on an ancient salute used by Roman prisoners to be executed in the Colosseum, "Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant" ("Hail Caesar, we who are about to die, salute you."). However, Angus Young later said that the inspiration for the cannons came from a very different source. The band was cutting the first recordings of the song on the same day as Princess Diana of Great Britain's televised wedding. Angus recalled that "someone had the wedding on in the next room ... we were playing that part of the song when the cannons were going off and we paused a second and went 'hmmm ... that actually sounds pretty good.'" This coincidence also led to a cannon being featured on the cover of the album and single, as well as life-sized Napoleonic cannons becoming a regular stage prop at AC/DC concerts. The cannons fired in the song are mixed with exploding fireworks.

AC/DC have often used the song to close live concerts, such as Live at Donington, No Bull, and Stiff Upper Lip Live as well as on their live CD AC/DC Live. It is also the song that concludes the most recent tour, Black Ice. It is one of only two songs released after Back in Black that are still performed live by the band, new material notwithstanding. The other is "Thunderstruck".

The song was covered by industrial metal band Godflesh and featured on the Gothic-Industrial tribute album to AC/DC, Covered in Black.

Read more about For Those About To Rock (We Salute You):  Personnel

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