Up to My Neck in You, Angus Young

In a vain attempt to stay calm in advance of ticket sale day for the Houston concert, I’m initiating a new series: My Current To-Die-For AC/DC Song and Why It Should Be Yours

First question: if it’s your to-die-for song, how can you have a different one every day? Good question! You are so right—how to move on to another song when, for example, today’s pick, Up to My Neck in You, is so, so, so perfect? Answer: for the purposes of this exercise—I said from the outset that it was one taken up in vain, since we all know it’s IMPOSSIBLE to be calm in this pre-purchase interval—I will force myself to change the cd in my car to another outstanding AC/DC selection every day. From each of those CDs, I will target my favorite song and let y’all know why you should be as taken with that song as I am.

As much as I love the entire Powerage track list, my favorite has to be UTMNIY, and why not? It has everything: powerhouse opening, tough pounding rhythm section blazing out at us from the get-go, Bon’s no nonsense delivery echoing words that ring true with all of us: Well I've been up to my neck in trouble/Up to my neck in strife/Up to my neck in misery/For most of my life /I've been a fool/And you know what a fool can do. Whoa, don’t we know the feeling all too well? Then, after the second verse, well baby my time is due/oh it’s way overdue, Angus just pours it on mercilessly with his extended solo…geez, no prisoners taken. Everything Angus does in the solo reinforces what Bon’s singing: his reluctant acknowledgement of surrendering to the power she has over him. He reveals that she can make him suffer and at the same time, the great feeling she may bestow on him (if everything’s going well). Baby you were too good, too good to be true/What you've got no one else could do/Now I'm up, I'm up to my neck in you/Yeah you came along when I needed you/Oh I'm up to my neck in you
And give Phil huge credit, the drum work supporting the solo is unbelievable. Okay, Phil’s great throughout, but I never noticed the superbly well-fitting, so necessary quality his drumming brings to the AC/DC sound as I do in this song.

Next question: if this song is so great, why don’t they play it in concert? Excellent question! Answer: when I finally get to meet Malcolm and/or Angus and I get past the incoherent mumbling section of the event, plus the courage to question the wisdom of the set list, I will find out. I only discovered UTMNIY relatively recently and I’m the poorer for it, but since that mind-blowing moment, I’ve talked about this song—and not just to myself—nonstop. History shows that it may or may not have been played in Houston on Sunday, July 2, 1978, when AC/DC opened for Aerosmith. (I know, I know, what? ?Aerosmith??) On acdc.com, one of the members said he was at an AC/DC concert where the song was played. Will check that out.

For now, suffice it to say: Up to My Neck in You is one of the best of the best. Excellent rhythm section, drumming by Phil Rudd outstanding; Angus’s solo is longer than in many of their songs and a fantastic extension of the words. He’s so into it, visceral, energy pumping riffs, with a playful, ironic attitude, you can just see him spinning, duck walking around the stage, reveling in the fantastic band interplay AND, the words, truly emblematic of the human condition! Thanks once again, Bon Scott! Let there (continue to) be rock, AC/DC!!