On Saturday 13 July, 1985, Status Quo opened the biggest concert in history with a cover version they had made their own almost a decade before. Standing on stage in front of 80,000 people packed into London’s Wembley Stadium for the British leg of the monumental Live Aid concert, these boogie-rock linchpins kicked off with Rockin’ All Over The World – a song that seemed to sum up the grand reach of this unprecedented event.
“Nobody wanted to go on first, so we went: ‘Fuck it, we’ll do it – get the fuck on, get the fuck off,’” says Quo singer and guitarist Francis Rossi. “But when we started playing that song, there was a total sense of euphoria. Everything slotted in. The sense of love from the audience was something else.”
The fact that it prompted such an ecstatic response was ironic, given that most Quo die-hards saw their 1977 cover of a blustering single by former Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty as the point where the British band jumped the shark, diluting the 100-per-cent-proof boogie with which they’d made their name. It had caused ructions within the band, too, with original bassist Alan Lancaster making no secret of his loathing of it.
Yet for all that, Rockin’ All Over The World has become Quo’s ultimate party anthem, a song they so completely and utterly made their own that it’s a stretch to imagine that someone else wrote it.
Status Quo formed in the mid-60s and initially found success hopping on the psychedelic bandwagon with their 1968 single Pictures Of Matchstick Men. By the start of the next decade, they’d swapped the phased guitars and frilly shirts for heads-down boogie and double denim.
A string of albums and singles followed that established them as one of Britain’s most successful rock bands. But America proved resistant to their brand of no-nonsense rock’n’roll, and US success proved frustratingly elusive.
“The original sounded a bit piddly. But we could Quo-up anything with a guitar on it.”
Francis Rossi
Ironically, it was Fogerty, former leader of the equally no-nonsense Creedence Clearwater Revival, who inadvertently gave Status Quo their most enduring song. Fogerty’s original version of Rockin’ All Over The World was lifted as a single from his second, self-titled album, released in 1975.
It was only a minor hit, reaching No.27 in the Billboard Chart, but Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt heard it on the radio and took it to his bandmates, who were sceptical.
“It sounded a bit piddly, to be honest,” says Rossi. “But me and Rick used to joke that we could Quo-up anything with a guitar on it. So that’s what we did.”
Quo had begun working with a new producer, Pip Williams, for their tenth studio album, ultimately also called Rockin’ All Over The World. Williams added a slickness to the band’s sound that hadn’t been there before. “Our old fans hated it,” Rossi says of the album. “We had so much mail going: ‘What the fuck is this?’ But that song brought in loads more new fans.”
Released as a single in September 1977, Status Quo’s heavied-up version of Rockin’ All Over The World gave them another UK Top 10 hit. And despite the denim-clad faithful’s reticence, it swiftly became a live favourite. But Rossi has mixed feelings about his band’s version of the song.
“We made the biggest mistake ever recording Rockin All Over The World, as an album and as a single,” he says. “Our bassist, Alan Lancaster, was really ashamed of it being released. He was right to a degree with how many fans it alienated, but the song itself was massive, and so was the album.”
Eight years after it was released, Bob Geldof invited the band to open a huge show he was organising to raise money for famine-struck Ethiopia. There was only one contender to kick off their set and the gig: Rockin’ All Over The World.
“The gig was bigger than any of us thought it would be – when we walked out and saw the amount of people in front of us, it was, ‘Oh shit,’” says Rossi. “You had to be singing ‘rockin’ all over the world’, cos that’s what everyone was doing.”
“It's wonderful to have a cover that's much better known than the original.”
John Fogerty
The song may have divided Quo themselves – Alan Lancaster, who objected to it in the first place, left soon after Live Aid – but John Fogerty himself subsequently revealed he was grateful for their version arriving during a “very dark period” in his life. “It's wonderful to have a cover that's much better known than the original,” he told Uncut.
Other bands and artists who have covered Rockin’ All Over The World include Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay, the latter giving a nice nod to Quo by singing part of it at 2005’s Live 8 concert. But it’s Quo’s version that remains the definitive one – at least to everyone apart from Francis Rossi.
“I don’t know why ours has become this classic ‘raawk’ song,” he says with a shrug. “Fuck me, even my dental hygienist sent me something the other day to say they were all singing it at some wedding reception.”
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