We're an American Band (song)
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"We're an American Band" (from the album of the same name) is a 1973 song by the band Grand Funk Railroad. It was the group's first number one single. Written by Don Brewer and produced by Todd Rundgren, the huge chart success of this single broadened Grand Funk's appeal to a much wider audience.
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[edit] Lyrics
In the song, the band mentions traveling through Little Rock, Arkansas, as well as stopping to party with four groupies that sneak into their hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. The lyrics also mention "sweet sweet Connie", which is the first name of legendary groupie Connie Hamzy. The group playing an all-night poker game with blues legend Freddie King is also mentioned.
[edit] Inspiration
According to rock critic/writer Dave Marsh in his book, The Heart of Rock and Soul, Grand Funk was touring with the British group Humble Pie in early 1973. After one performance, the two groups were drinking in a bar when the two groups began arguing over the merits of British versus American rock. Grand Funk drummer Don Brewer stood up and after bragging about American rock heroes such as Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard and Elvis Presley, proudly announced, "We're an American band!" Thus inspired, Brewer wrote the song the next morning, and it was the top selling song in the world by September of 1973. A video was also made, showing the band playing the song as well as engaging in activities such as basketball, dirtbike riding and watersports.
In an unusual act of arrogance for Capitol Records, the original single was released on gold transparent vinyl.
[edit] Subsequent versions
Americade (the band, not the motorcycle rally) covered the song for their 1982 album release Americade.
Autograph covered the song in November, 1985 and had it added to their second album That’s the Stuff in early 1986, replacing the original track #6, which was released in October, 1985. The "Up all night with Freddy King, I got to tell you pokers his thing" portion early in the song is replaced by "Up all night, sleep all day, I got to tell you that's how we play" for unknown reasons, possibly because of King's death ten years earlier.
Poison covered the song for their The Best of Poison: 20 Years of Rock compilation and replacing the line "And we proceeded to tear that hotel down" with the line "And Poison tore that hotel down."
Kid Rock covered the song during one year's MTV Video Music Awards, substituting "We'll help you party down" with "We'll take your panties down".
All-accordion rock band Those Darn Accordions parodied this song as "We're An Accordion Band", substituting many of the lyrics with references to famous accordion players such as Myron Florin and Flaco "The King" Jimenez". They replace "We'll help you party down" with "We'll help you polka down".
Jackyl covered the song for their 1998 compilation release Choice Cuts utilizing Jesse Dupree's unique vocal style.
The Village People cover the song as part of their live repertoire.
Singers Aly & AJ have covered this song for Randy Jackson’s Music Club: Volume One.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single September 29, 1973 |
Succeeded by "Half-Breed" by Cher |
