Stray Cats – Rock This Town

I can’t tell you how much I liked this band when it was released. Such a fun and great sound. A throwback to the 50s was not what I was expecting…I can’t believe it got so popular at the time because it was so out of left field with mainstream at the time. 

In the eighties, this was a fresh approach. A fifties-sounding band that featured guitar (Brian Setzer), double bass (Lee Rocker), and a snare drum (Slim Jim Phantom). No electronic drum in sight. This track is exciting because of the clear sharp guitar that sliced through. At the time, synthesizers reigned in popular music. The song peaked at  #9 in the Billboard 100, #6 in Canada, #18 in New Zealand, and #9 in the UK in 1982.

The band broke up in 1984 while they were still successful. Since then the Stray Cats have reunited a few times and toured. Brian Setzer has been known since the breakup and the other members have remained busy as well. The bass player Lee Rocker has worked with worked with a variety of artists, including Carl Perkins, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

Slim Jim Phantom has played with many rockabilly bands including The Head Cat with Lemmy and Danny B. Harvey. He and Earl Slick from David Bowie’s band have made music as well. Setzer has formed the Brian Setzer Orchestra as a swing revival band that has become well-known.

Around 1984 they broke up because Setzer wasn’t feeling it anymore and the band had internal conflicts. He later regretted by saying “It was silly to break up the Stray Cats at the peak of our success.”

Rock This Town

Well, my baby and me went out late Saturday night
I had my hair piled high and my baby just looked so right
Well-ell, pick you up at ten, gotta have you home at two
Mama don’t know what I got in store for you
But that’s all right, ’cause we’re looking as cool as can be

Well, we found a little place that really didn’t look half bad
I had a whiskey on the rocks, and changed half a dollar for the jukebox
Well-ell, I put a quarter right into that can, but all they played was disco, man
Come on, baby, baby, let’s get out of here right away

We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
We’re gonna rock this town
Make ’em scream and shout
Let’s rock, rock, rock, man, rock
We’re gonna rock till we pop
We’re gonna rock till we drop
We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
(Rock it, rock right in!)

(Whoa!)
(Whoo!)
(Oh my god)
Whoo!

Well, we’re having a ball just a-bopping on the big dance floor
Well, there’s a real square cat, he looks a 1974
Well-ell, he looked at me once, he looked at me twice
Look at me again and there’s a-gonna be fight
We’re gonna rock this town
We’re gonna rip this place apart

We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
We’re gonna rock this town
Make ’em scream and shout
Let’s rock, rock, rock, man, rock
We’re gonna rock till we pop
We’re gonna rock till we drop
We’re gonna rock this town
Rock this place apart

We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
We’re gonna rock this town
Make ’em scream and shout
Let’s rock, rock, rock, man, rock
We’re gonna rock till we pop
We’re gonna rock till we drop
We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out

We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
We’re gonna rock this town
Rock it inside out
Whoo!

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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.

59 thoughts on “Stray Cats – Rock This Town”

    1. Yes…you are the reason mostly I started to put live performances also…because you said you liked them more…and I know a lot of people feel like you.

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      2. I totally agree. You have me listening to the live versions as well now. Since you are a huge Dead fan it makes complete sense.

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    1. I’m jealous Randy…I waned to see these guys. The only trio I’ve seen that played rockabilly was the play “Buddy” in the early 90s…and it was great.

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      1. They were fantastic. A Canadian outfit called The Powder Blues Band opened for them. I saw that play as well, somehow a guitar pick came flying off the stage and ended up in my lap as we were in the second or third row. Don’t think I have it anymore.

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      2. Someone else just commented they got Robin Trowers pick on the other post… I never got close enough usually. I’m now listening to The Powder Blues Band on youtube…cool! Thanks Randy.

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  5. Ah yes…high school for me. I loved ‘Runaway Boys’. I still sing & dance to that tune whenever I hear it on XM’x ‘1st Wave’. They were so unique when they came out. That original ‘Rock-ibilly’ sound.

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  6. As a child of the eighties, I grew up listening to, and idolising, the likes of Stray Cats. My dad even formed a rockabilly band around the same time, which was reasonably successful on the club-scene in the UK.
    My brother, two sisters, and our cousins, ‘formed’ our own band, singing and dancing in our grandparents gardens, pretending it was our stage, and using tennis rackets as our instruments.
    ‘Blast Off’, ‘Runaway Boys’, and ‘Look at that Cadillac’ were our favourites (and still are).

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    1. Thanks for the story! That is so cool that music does that.
      I was 14 when this came out…and I loved this sound because it was so different than what was on the radio at the time.

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  8. I almost had a Stray Cats post yesterday, Slim Jim turned 64. The ’80s seemed all about new, different sounds, whether it was throwback rockabilly no one had played for 2 decades, new all-electronic dance music , country-rock pairings eventually called Alt Country….seemed like anything goes back then & people would give it a chance. That made the decade great, even if some formerly great acts carried on a few years too long building cities or calling to say, say, say they live you

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    1. LOL…love your last sentence. Now the indie scene…I was totally into as you know. That was awesome and the garage bands of the era…with the scenes like your Athens music scene, Paisley scene, to the Minnesota one.

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      1. Phone somehow auto-corrected ‘love’ to ‘live’, but you got the point. I think of ’80sand I think of songs like ‘Purting on the Ritz’ (which I didn’t particularly like) and ‘Mexican Radio’ (which I did) and fondly think ‘when else would many people have taken a chance on listening to such odd tunes? When else would they mix with Janet Jackson or Bon Jovi on the top 40?’

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      2. I’m glad they did…Puting on the Ritz…you know…in a cringe way I kinda liked it for a little bit Dave…but it got old quick. It was a novelty song to me…yea I liked Mexican Radio I have to admit.
        Oh our rock station here did the same thing…they would play Bon Jovi, Beatles, Mexian Radio and different things.

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    1. Yes I am. All of these guys are great on their own as well.
      I have a text I’m going to send a guitar player of mine…he is a great guitar player and friend…I am going to ask him if he wants to grab a drummer and play some rockabilly soon…after seeing that live version.

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      2. I’ll make this brief man…he never responded to my text and my wife found a place we never went to in a town around 30 mins away. We go there…and Chris (guitar player that I texted) was there. His phone was dead. We talked and he is coming down weekend after next to play some rockabilly. That will be fun. Sorry CB…just had to mention it.

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    1. I would like to have seen them. I was telling someone the only trio I ever saw live playing rockabilly was a play called “Buddy” about Holly of course. I was amazed on how as a trio sounded so powerful in that theater.

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  12. “Rock This Town” is such a fun song. Unless you’re dead, it’s impossible to start moving when you hear it. I also agree 100% with your assessment. Coming out during a period dominated by synth pop and gated reverb drum sound, the song’s success truly was a surprise.

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  13. Rockabilly is the bop that just refuses to drop. It has a simplicity and looseness, with timeless appeal, and the Stray Cats were great exponents. The Clash were fans of rockabilly and you can hear the influence in some of their tracks.

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  14. Yes, others have pretty much said it all. All I can add is that sometimes the old can be renewed.

    For a lot of people there is a five year span where music is part of your life, then the love of it falls away. Around your early 20s mostly. A fair few find music is part of their ongoing life and even fewer find it to be tied in, wired into them till the day the Head Honcho in charge of the Big Power Company In The Sky flicks our switch. Anyway, screw this rambling half-assed Philosophy! Lets simply say that for many of us the Cats retro vibe cut through the dreck of the synthesised 80s. Good ol’ simple dancey fun.

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    1. Yes it was…throwback 70s rock wasnt able to get through a lot until the end of the decade but I’m glad this did.
      After watching that live cut…I texted my guitar buddy and asked him to grab a drummer soon and come over and play some rockabilly. Not only fun to listen to…fun to play.

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      2. I told this to CB…the guitar player never returned my text…so Jen found a place we never went before in Clarksville around 20-30 mins away. We walk in and there is Chris (the guitar player I texted)…his phone was dead but we followed them to their house and weekend after next we are playing. Now I have to practice a little.

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  15. He looks so young there! I enjoyed them while they were around. I think he may have started up another group with a full orchestra later? So long ago now (40 years!?) where has the time gone?

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  16. Met Lee Rocker in his Phantom, Rocker & Slick days, which, incidentally is a great band; he’s such a cool guy. My husband prepped him for a radio interview a few years after I met him. Said he was awesome. Top tier bassist.

    The Stray Cats were a fantastic live band. Very high energy show, Stetzer, Phantom and Rocker were very charismatic in addition to being great musicians.

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    1. I love hearing guys like that are good people as well. I missed seeing them because I think they came here in 2019….something happened and I missed it.

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    1. Yes they are John…and I got so hit by this that I ran into an old guitar friend of mine today and I told him…hey Chris…lets get together and play some rockabilly. He got excited and said yes…we are going to get together in a couple of weeks. It will be fun playing bass more again. We will pick up a drummer somewhere…I would love playing rockabilly in a trio.

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