Ace of Spades (song)

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Ace of Spades
Motorhead
publication 1980
length 2:46
Genre (s) Heavy metal , punk rock , rock 'n' roll
Author (s) Motorhead
Label Bronze Records

Ace of Spades is a song by Motörhead that was released in 1980. He combines stylistic elements from heavy metal and punk rock and thus shaped thrash and speed metal . As the band's signature song , Ace of Spades also stands for Lemmy Kilmister's standard announcement before concerts : “We are Motörhead. And we play rock 'n' roll . " 

Sound and text

Ace of Spades : intro (bars 1–4), main riff (bars 5–8), verse accompaniment (bars 9–12)

Ace of Spades opens with a riff that Kilmister plays on his bass; followed by a roll that Phil Taylor strikes on his snare drum . Eddie Clarke adds chords and other riffs with his guitar and also plays a short solo . Kilmister lays his vocals on top of that, which he himself compared to a “ gorilla on Valium ”. The climax of the song, whose tempo is around 140 bpm , is a break in which Kilmister sings perhaps his most famous line of text: “You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools; but that's the way I like it baby; I don't wanna live forever; and don't forget the joker! " 

The text of Ace of Spades (English for ace of spades ) can be interpreted as an allegory of life - but is actually rather banal. Kilmister wrote in his autobiography: “I used gambling metaphors, mostly cards and dice. When it comes to gambling, I'm actually more into slot machines, but you can't really sing about rotating fruit and falling cogs. Most of the song is about poker. " 

The line “… Read 'em and weep, the dead man's hand again; I see it in your eyes, take one look and die… ”refers to the combination of cards Dead Man's hand .

Recordings and publications

Composed was Ace of Spades by all three band members together, produced was the song by Vic Maile . The recordings in Jackson's studio (Rickmansworth, England) took place in the following cast: 

Lemmy Kilmister - here with guitar (2006)
  • Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister: vocals , bass
  • Edward Allan “Fast Eddie” Clarke: Guitar
  • Philip John “Philthy Animal” Taylor: drums

Ace of Spades was first released in October 1980 by the Bronze Records label as a 7 ″ single ; B-side : Dirty Love . The record cover shows a black ace of spades symbol decorated with white ornaments on a red background. In addition, a “Christmas Edition” with an identical tracklist, limited to 50,000 copies; For the cover of this 12 ″ single , the band members disguised themselves as Santa Clauses (bronze, 1980). In addition, Ace of Spades is the title track of Motörhead's fifth studio album (Bronze, 1980) and opens their first live album No Sleep 'til Hammersmith (Bronze, 1981). In the following years, the song was also re-released by various labels in different formats - often on compilations .

Ace of Spades has been covered multiple times ; by Sodom , Ugly Kid Joe and Eläkeläiset, among others . The song was also sampled occasionally ; for example from The KLF and Motorpsycho . In addition, Ace of Spades appears regularly in computer games , especially in those from the genre of music games - the song can be played on Guitar Hero , Rock Band , SingStar and DJ Hero .

Charts and reception

Ace of Spades playing card (ace of spades)

In the British charts , Ace of Spades reached number 15 as the highest position after its first appearance. Around 35 years later, after Kilmister's death, the group “Motörhead For No.1” formed on Facebook with the aim of producing the song to make it number one in the British charts through massive downloading and streaming - it was number 13. Ace of Spades entered the German single charts in 2016 at number 96; This is the first ever Motörhead single to be placed in the chart.

Ace of Spades is widely considered a musical classic . The New Musical Express named the song 155th in a list of the 500 best songs of all time in 2014 - after Papa's Got a Brand New Bag by James Brown and before I Want to Hold Your Hand by the Beatles . On Allmusic you can read about the song or the album that when looking for the roots of bands like Metallica you have to start with Ace of Spades . And a reviewer for Bayerischer Rundfunk wrote: "Less than three minutes, but so brutal, so ingenious, so legendary that generations of metal fans headbang to the point of stiff neck." 

Kilmister could only understand this general enthusiasm to a limited extent: “To be honest, although Ace of Spades is a good song, it is now really annoying to me. Two decades later, when people think of Motörhead, they think of Ace of Spades . You know, we didn't turn to pillars of salt after the album. We've had a few good releases since then. But the fans want to hear it, so we still play it every night. As for me, I've had enough of the song. " 

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Motörhead: Ace of Spades - Album (Liner Notes)
  2. ↑ a b c www.allmusic.com: Ace of Spades (review)
  3. ↑ www.songbpm.com: Ace of Spades (Beats per minute)
  4. ↑ a b c Lemmy; with Janiss Garza: White Line Fever - The Autobiography . Heyne, Munich, 2006. p. 142
  5. ↑ www.discogs.com: Ace of Spades (release details)
  6. ↑ www.whosampled.com: Ace of Spades (cover and samples)
  7. ↑ www.billboard.com: Ace of Spades (Pop Culture References)
  8. ↑ www.officialcharts.com: Motörhead (chart history)
  9. ↑ www.facebook.com: “Motörhead For No.1”
  10. ↑ www.offiziellecharts.de: Motörhead (chart history)
  11. ↑ www.rocklistmusic.co.uk: Ace of Spades ( New Musical Express - List Placement)
  12. ↑ www.br.de: Ace of Spades - Album (review)