The Scorpions

The Scorpions

In my current job, I travel quite a bit. I live out of my laptop bag and spend too much time in rental cars. My current travels remind me of my younger days in the Navy when I drove cross-country from duty station to duty station. It was the early eighties and there was a lot of great music to choose from to keep me company on those long trips. My favorite band for driving down the road was The Scorpions.

I think I drove back and forth across the US as least 5 times within as many years. I lived on McDonald’s cheeseburgers and stayed awake by listening to The Scorpions at full volume. I had two of their cassettes at the time: Blackout and Love at First Sting.

Blackout was my favorite album for driving down the freeway. Several high intensity songs like “Blackout”, “Dynamite”, and “China White” kept me awake after long hours on the road. Of course there were more popular songs on the album like “No One Like You” that everyone knew from the radio.

Love at First Sting is a close second. I don’t think the songs are as energetic, but they are just as good. If you recognize any Scorpions songs it will be “Rock You Like a Hurricane” from this album. I would say that “Still Loving You” is my all-time favorite rock ballad – the guitar music perfectly complements the sentiment of the song. It’s probably one of my favorite air-guitar songs too, but I get funny looks from my daughter when I indulge in that pastime. And she doesn’t think it’s funny to play with a fake guitar (Guitar Hero). I don’t see a big difference, except it’s harder to keep up with Guitar Hero after a couple of beers, but my air guitar is still on fire.

I also own two more of their albums (CD’s actually, but old habits): Savage Amusement and Crazy World. I like all the songs on all four of these albums. If you like 80’s rock and roll, give The Scorpions a listen. They go good with McDonald’s cheeseburgers and long lonely highways.