Rock You Like A Hurricane Scorpions

Rock You Like A Hurricane Album: Love At First Sting (1984)
by Scorpions

In an interview with Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker, he said: "I think 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' is a perfect rock anthem, which talks about attitude and sexuality. It's very important to recognize the tension between the verses and the chorus. I think Klaus (Meine) went over the lyrics around eight or nine times because the first lyrics of the song went something like 'blah blah blah blah.' And we said, 'No! The song is not feeling right.' But at the ninth or tenth time, it came.

The lyric goes: 'The bitch is hungry, she needs to tell, so give her inches and feed her well.' This was the tension between the 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' chorus, and the words to the verses. This is what makes the song great. And the funny thing is, the girls, when they're talking about 'Rock You Like A Hurricane,' they say, 'Oh, I love your song 'Rock Me Like A Hurricane.''"

The video for Rock You Like A Hurricane, which features a leopard, a black panther, women wearing next-to-nothing, and the band inside a makeshift cage which is being rocked back and forth by the crowd outside, was targeted by Tipper Gore in an interview about her reasons behind co-founding the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center). Stated Gore, in an interview with Gary James, "At that time, there was Van Halen's 'Hot For Teacher,' Motley Crue's 'Looks That Kill,' The Scorpions' 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' - I mean, there were some very violent images. Through the eyes of a 6 or 8-year-old, when they see these scantily clad women kind of rounded up by the band members and put in cages, and there's whips, and there's a sort of menace and there's a sort of a sexuality, they pick up on that."

The PMRC was founded in 1985 by four wives of powerful political men. They became known as the "Washington Wives." Their objective was to have record companies voluntarily place warning labels on records that contained sexually explicit or violent lyrics or images, or which were suggestive of drug use. Although many recording artists testified against the use of any labels on their material, citing their rights to freedom of speech and no censorship, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began placing warning labels on its merchandise, and continues to do so. The RIAA represents the US recording industry, and count among its members record labels and distributors responsible for the creation and distribution of 90% of recorded music sold there.

The video was directed by David Mallet, who had done AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and Billy Idol's "White Wedding." Rudolf Schenker credits him with capturing the essence of the Scorpions, saying in I Want My MTV, "He said, 'Don't be serious, let's get crazy.' That video is about attitude, craziness, and sexuality. That's how we survived into the video generation."

This song is played at the home games of the National Hockey League's Carolina Hurricanes