Motörhead

Lemmy was twelve, in an isolated corner of north Wales with only a crackling radio for company, when Little Richard's voice reached him. "Little Richard sang how I felt," he said, "and I felt it was mine" — a conviction he never softened. Decades later, ranking his heroes for Classic Rock, he was blunt: "nobody comes within 50 yards of Little Richard," he said, placing him above even the Beatles. So in 1995, handed a mainstream TV slot fronting Jools Holland's big band, Lemmy used it to sing "Good Golly Miss Molly" himself.

listen: upstream & heresource: Louder Than War — An epic interview with Lemmy by John Robb (Little Richard, Beatles/Stones comparison, MC5, Back in the U.S.S.R. quotes) ↗share

1958

Good Golly Miss MollyLittle Richard

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1980

Ace of SpadesMotörhead

listen forRichard's 1958 "Good Golly Miss Molly" opens on a scream before the first line even lands, a voice pushed past clean control on purpose, riding a boogie-woogie piano built for speed, not polish. Cue up Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" and the same move is audible: Lemmy barks the melody rather than singing it, sitting just ahead of a tempo already redlining. Neither man is chasing pitch. Both are chasing urgency — the sound of a singer racing his own band to the end of the verse.

Lemmy discovered Chuck Berry on a jukebox in a remote part of north Wales, chasing more of it afterward on the crackly signal of Radio Luxembourg. "It took a lot of people to make rock and roll," he told Brave Words, "but he was one of the cornerstones." He admired Berry's economy as much as his riffs — "he'd give you all the makes of the cars... in just a few words, he'd lay it all out" — and in 2012 he paid the debt in person, joining a Cleveland tribute concert to sing Berry's own "Bye Bye Johnny."

listen: upstream & heresource: Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles — Lemmy on Chuck Berry as a cornerstone of rock and roll ↗share

1958

Johnny B. GoodeChuck Berry

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1977

MotörheadMotörhead

listen forBerry's 1958 "Johnny B. Goode" is built almost entirely around one guitar riff, restated and mutated until the song is that riff wearing a story — a country boy, a guitar, a promise of fame in three verses. Motörhead's self-titled 1977 track runs the same trick at triple the volume: Eddie Clarke's riff repeats through every verse while the band announces its own name in the opening single. Berry's clean twang becomes distortion; the swaggering announcement stays exactly intact.

At sixteen, Lemmy stood in Liverpool's Cavern Club and watched the Beatles before Beatlemania existed, then went home and taught himself their debut LP, Please Please Me, on guitar. He never stopped ranking them first: "they were amazing — greatest rock n roll band ever," he told Louder Than War, adding that where the Rolling Stones "were too art school, the Beatles were real working class." Of their later work he singled out one song by name: "Back in the U.S.S.R. is a great piece of rock n roll, as good as anything I've heard."

listen: upstream & hereshare

1968

Back in the U.S.S.R.The Beatles

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1979

OverkillMotörhead

listen for"Back in the U.S.S.R." never lets its own joke slow it down — a Chuck Berry riff sped into a jet-engine sprint, Beach Boys harmonies thrown in almost as a dare, no bridge allowed to cool things off. Motörhead's "Overkill" answers with the same refusal to ease up: a barreling, twin-bass-drum charge that never pauses for breath either. Neither band sounds interested in restraint once the tempo is set — a shared, audible impatience across two very different studios, a decade apart.