Tune Tuesday – Rock ‘N Me

It was on this day in 1987 that Steve Miller got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

According to songfacts.com: Steve Miller wrote Rock ‘N Me this song after getting a gig opening for Pink Floyd at the Knebworth Festival on July 5, 1975. “I was going to play this really big concert so I needed a song that would be really good, so the first time we did ‘Rock ‘N Me’ was at Knebworth,” Miller told Hi-Fi News & Record Review.

Steve apparently had road trip radio in mind when he wrote this song. He was a big fan of upbeat rockers that go great with driving and he knew “Rock ‘N Me” would play well on FM radio. FM was supplanting AM as the format of choice, especially in cars. In accordance with many famous traveling songs, this one mentions a bunch of places: Phoenix, Tacoma, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Northern California.

If the song sounds a bit familiar, it was intentional. Miller has acknowledged that elements of “Rock ‘N Me”, particularly the intro, was a nod to the English rock band Free, in particular, their song “All Right Now.”

Steve says, “Yeah, it’s a tack on the wall for Paul (Kossoff). I did one concert in the two years that I was off the road. I went to London and played with Pink Floyd… it was a big, huge outdoor show so we needed a big rock and roll number that was really going to excite everybody. I just put it together and didn’t think much about it.”