Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)

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"Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)" is a 1974 song by a group of studio musicians in a group for this purpose called Reunion, with Joey Levine (bubblegum music pioneer with "Chewy Chewy" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy" to his credit), as the lead singer. The song was written by Paul DiFranco. The lyrics are a fast chant of '50s, '60s, and '70s disc jockeys, musicians, songwriters, record labels and (incongruously) Jack the Ripper, broken only by the chorus. Alternatively, "Jack the Ripper" could also be "Jack D. Ripper" from Dr. Strangelove, a popular 1964 film by Stanley Kubrick. It is also possible that "Jack the Ripper" could be a nod to the British Rock Star and Political Leader Screaming Lord Sutch, and his 1972 album Hands of Jack the Ripper.

It went as high as #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The track was later covered by Tracey Ullman in 1984 and was featured in her album, You Broke My Heart in Seventeen Places.

The song is mentioned by the character named Spider in the Neil Gaiman novel, Anansi Boys. In response to another character, who speaks almost entirely in cliches, Spider says, "Life is a rock but the radio rolled me," to which the other character replies, "Whatever."

It is also possible that Weird Al Yankovic used this song in "Hardware Store" from the Poodle Hat album.^{[citation needed]}

The song was sampled by the "McDonald's Menu Song" in 1988.

Tysons Corner Center has used the names of its stores sung to the tune of this song for television and radio advertisements in the Northern Virginia area.