![]() I have a heart full of napalm.’ He had a great turn of phrase there, so I just updated it.” The opening line is an update of the song ‘Heart Full of Soul’ by The Yardbirds, where he sings, ‘I got a heart full of soul.’ I thought, ‘Well, I don't. “There was an article on Vietnam in Time magazine, and the two subheadings in the two parts of the piece-one was ‘Search and Destroy,’ and the other one was ‘Raw Power.’ So I nicked both of those. Here Iggy details each of the songs on one of punk’s most enduring documents. The same could be said of the serpentine, Doors-like “Gimme Danger,” the nasty groove and hypnotic xylophone melody of “Penetration,” and the dirty, rolling blues of “I Need Somebody.” The stories behind them-not to mention the motorcycle-rock title track the lusty, handclap-propelled “Shake Appeal” and the petulant kiss-off “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell”-are almost as cool as the songs themselves. “I knew it was good and that it was something that would hold up in a particular way over a very long period of time.” “When I heard the playback of ‘Search and Destroy’ in the studio, I thought it had this immortal quality,” he says. Of course, 25-year-old Iggy didn’t know that he and The Stooges were about to launch a movement, but he could sense the song’s greatness. With its slash-and-burn riff and opening salvo “I’m a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of napalm/I’m the runaway son of the nuclear A-bomb,” “Search and Destroy” is an anthem for the ages, the song that launched a thousand bands-everyone from the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and The Smiths’ Johnny Marr to The Clash’s Mick Jones will confirm it. “Over the top” might be the best way to describe some of the most memorable moments on Raw Power. It was difficult for me to sing to it, so I decided to go over the top.” So his style's very dense, very hard to find a place in. He doesn't really think about other people. “He learned in his bedroom, and he likes to write in his bedroom. ![]() Iggy’s new musical partnership with Williamson was difficult at first. “I'll be overwhelmed, and I'll be in an area where my feet can't touch the ground.” “I thought, this is not the time in my career to go anywhere without my own music,” he recalls. And the implied power shift was very real: This was now Iggy’s band. The dysfunctional, drug-addled band that had released their self-titled 1969 album and 1970’s Fun House as simply The Stooges was now Iggy & The Stooges. Everybody just threw up their hands: ‘Great, we’ve got the fucking Stooges.’”īeyond Williamson’s crucial presence, there was another important distinction. I got on the phone and pushed and shoved and manipulated until we got him brought over with me, and ultimately the other two. I said, ‘Play me your best current idea.’ He played me the riff to ‘Penetration.’ So that was what convinced me. So I sought out Williamson, who was the most interesting guitar player I knew. “I had an offer to go to England and put together a band, but no one was looking for The Stooges again-just me. “Once The Stooges Mach One had broken up, everything was in shambles,” Iggy tells Apple Music. But its beginnings were less than auspicious. Fifty years after its February 1973 release, Raw Power still looms like a colossus. ![]() What they didn’t know when they entered London’s CBS Studios in September of 1972 is that they were also about to lay the blueprint for punk. The newly reconfigured band, with Iggy on vocals, James Williamson on guitar, Scott Asheton on drums, and former Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton moving to bass-and David Bowie producing-was about to do just that. But what did I want? I just wanted to out-rock everyone.” That’s the thing: It was too wild for people. ![]() Ask Iggy Pop what he wanted to accomplish when he and The Stooges started writing their third album Raw Power, and he’ll tell you this: “I didn’t think we were going to accomplish much, because everybody preferred to listen to tamer stuff, frankly.
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