“I am the only person to fit the word ‘parallelogram’ into a rock’n’roll number,” Lemmy once reflected. “I’m very proud of that.”
The song in question was the one that became the bassist and singer’s personal theme tune, “Motorhead”. A motorhead was someone devoted to the consumption of amphetamine sulphate — which Lemmy most certainly was — and the song was a snapshot of such a person’s life. The word in question popped up in the opening couplet of the song’s final verse — “Fourth day, five-day marathon / We’re moving like a parallelogram” — though the tone had been set in the opening verse: “Don’t know how long I been awake / Wound up in an amazing state.”
The song pre-dated the formation of the band of the same name (hence the fact that it does not take an umlaut in its title, unlike the band name). Lemmy wrote it in Los Angeles in 1974, when he was still a member of the space-rock band Hawkwind. “I was on tour with Hawkwind,” he later said. “We were staying at the Riot House [the Continental Hyatt House hotel on Sunset Boulevard] and Roy Wood and Wizzard were also in town. I got this urge to write a song in the middle of the night. I ran downstairs to the Wizzard room, got Roy’s Ovation acoustic guitar, then hurried back to mine. I went on to the balcony and howled away for four hours.”
The first recording was in 1975 by Hawkwind, on the B-side of “Kings of Speed”, in very different form to the one it would later take. Though its constituent elements are the same — it opens with Lemmy’s bass riff, before fuzzed guitars come in — Hawkwind’s “Motorhead” is metronomic and dazed. And rather than a ferocious guitar solo, there’s a violin break. It sounds like a record by dope smokers rather than speed freaks.
After he was sacked from Hawkwind in May 1975, Lemmy formed a new band. At first the group was to be called Bastard, then on managerial advice it was renamed for one of the songs Lemmy had brought with him (the umlaut were added when designer Phil Smee was asked to draw up a logo). Naturally, Motörheadhad to record their title song, which they did for their debut album in 1977. Released at the height of punk, the new version sounded like Lemmy’s dreams — and everyone else’s nightmares — come true. The tuning was taken down half a step, giving it a new heaviness, and the velocity was taken up. Lemmy’s voice was no longer a sleepy growl, but a full-throttle roar (“I should be tired / And all I am is WIRED!”), and “Fast” Eddie Clarke’s guitar playing is crazily untramelled.
As Motörhead became one of British rock’s most popular bands, Hawkwind saw the chance to capitalise: Dave Brock took the original version of the song, replaced Lemmy’s vocal with his own, added some overdubs and released “Motorhead” as a single in 1981. But that version was crushed almost immediately, when Motörhead released a live version— it reached No 6, and still sounds astonishing, like a jet engine has been installed in your head. It might be the most uncompromising top 10 hit ever.
It was so uncompromising, in fact, it was hard for any other group to make any sense of the song. Assorted punk bands tried — Lawnmower Deth, Poison Idea, the Nomads(who recast it, unsuccessfully, as country) among them — but the two most intriguing versions came from different places. The acid jazz band Corduroyturned in a mod funk version, perhaps taking inspiration from the affection of original 60s faces for speed to keep them dancing all night. They were surpassed by Primal Screamon their 1997 album Vanishing Point, where krautrock, house music, dub and punk came together in a version that was as brutal and disorienting in its own way as Motörhead’s had been.
But “Motorhead” will always be Lemmy’s song. “If we moved in next door, your lawn would die,” he once said of his band. And the song that serves as an epitaph not just for him, but for the drummer Phil Taylor, and for Eddie Clarke — the last of the trio to die, in January — was their version of a herbicide, at Agent Orange strength.
We’re keen to hear from our readers. Whose version of “Motorhead” is best? Let us know in the comments.
‘The Life of a Song: The fascinating stories behind 50 of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music clips: Anagram Records, Ace Records, Noise Records, Earache Records, American Leather, Amigo, Cherry Red Records, Creation Records
Picture: Gus Stewart/Redferns