ZZ Top – I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide

That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.

ZZ Top is a fun band. I like their music and when they made Eliminator it was a good sound for that time but I always favored their seventies-period. Their music before that album is a little rawer and edgier. Billy Gibbons is a hell of a guitar player and even  Jimi Hendrix was a fan.

This song was released in 1979 and didn’t chart but it remains one of my favorites of them. It was on the Degüello album released in 1979. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard Album Charts. In case you are wondering…  I’m here to teach!”Degüello” is a Spanish noun from the verb “degollar”, to describe the action of throat-cutting.

They are a tight band and I bought a ticket to one of their shows in the early 80s…they were explosive with a great light show. They had a huge sound for a trio.

A Texas blues musician named Joey Long, who was good friends with the band, inspired this song. Long didn’t have a driver’s license, but he always had a new Cadillac. His wife Barbella would drive him to gigs in that car.  Joey Long never became a household name nor rich and famous but was a guitar mentor to Billy Gibbons. The song just embellished Long driving along with females all around him.

Billy Gibbons played what he described as “a multi-stringed mandolin-like instrument from Parral, Mexico” that Joey Long gave him on this track.

Billy Gibbons: “If you listen closely, you can hear close-miked mandolin-sounding rhythm accompaniment, the lead track was played on a custom-made, half-sized, real short-scaled guitar tuned to G. It was actually standard tuning cranked up three steps, which remained quite playable thanks to the guitar’s short scale. The song’s tail end alternates between three distinct effects created by two pedals: an Echoplex doubler and a Maestro octave box alternating every third bar between having the octave up and the octave down.”

I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide

Well I was rollin’ down the road in some cold blue steel
I had a blues man in back, and a beautician at the wheel
We going downtown in the middle of the night
We laughing and I’m jokin’ and we feelin’ alright

Oh I’m bad, I’m nationwide
Yes I’m bad, I’m nationwide

Easin’ down the highway in a new Cadillac
I had a fine fox in front, I had three more in the back
They sportin’ short dresses, wearin’ spike-heel shoes
They smokin’ Lucky Strikes, and wearing nylons too

‘Cause we bad, we nationwide
Yeah we bad, we nationwide

Well I was movin’ down the road in my V-8 Ford
I had a shine on my boots, I had my sideburns lowered
With my New York brim and my gold tooth displayed
Nobody give me trouble ’cause they know I got it made

I’m bad, I’m nationwide
Well I’m bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, I’m nationwide
Yes man!

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

23 thoughts on “ZZ Top – I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”

  3. Oddly enough I heard this one a fair bit in Canada but haven’t ever heard it down here where you’d think they’d be considered near-royalty. Neat to get a bit of background on the song and find it’s about a real person, sort of. I would guess they would have been great to see live back then – I saw Tres Hombres, a pretty good cover band of theirs, around ’85 and it was a real fun party. I’d rather listen to ‘Eliminator’ or some of ‘Afterburner’ at home or on radio but their old blues-rock material seems to translate well played live.

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    1. They were great live…I should have known but they surprised me. Because of the radio play they got in the 80s…there is only a few songs I can take from that period. I did LOVE the videos though! Hmmmm wonder why? lol.

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  6. I wasn’t a great fan during their MTV Eliminator times, but in the early 70s they were great. As you say, a lot of sound for three guys. I haven’t heard them since Dusty passed. The band started in Dallas and was known back in the late 60s as American Blues, then morphed into ZZ.

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    1. Phil, they are going back to their original sound a little lately. Before Dusty passed they were also. They milked that 80s sound as much as they could.

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  7. When I explored their early albums I thought this was one of their best tracks. Very gutsy sound. Then along came Eliminator, MTV, radio play, and they went stratospheric.

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  9. Ah, Max, good one! Or perhaps I should say bad one! 🙂

    Even when they suddenly ZZ Top sounded pretty commercial in the ’80s, I loved their songs and still do. They are just cool dudes and some of their videos were pretty hilarious. I mean who can ever forget rotating guitars covered in white fur?

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    1. Don’t get me wrong Christian….I like Eliminator…but I just favored this stuff…the raw edgier stuff…of course I grew up with Tush, Jesus Just Left Chicago, Cheap Sunglasses, etc..

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      2. Yes it is…it’s the first song we ever played on stage…the bass is just root notes but powerful.

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      3. Cool. It’s a perfect bar tune that gets everybody up and moving. It also sounds like even I might be able to master the bass part! 🙂

        A few years ago, I also watched a bunch of YouTube clips breaking down that cool guitar riff. At the time, I got it about 80 percent. My thick and slowly moving fingers just don’t seem to cooperate very well! 🙂

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      4. You could do it…but it fits perfectly. A busy bass would not sound good in that one.
        I have forgotten how to play it lol.

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