In 1979, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell album was the last to feature lead singer Bon Scott. And the final song on the album went out on the eeriest of notes.
Written by Scott, Angus Young and Malcolm Young, “Night Prowler,“ the 10th and final track on Highway to Hell, ran for over six minutes, with a slow, bluesy pace and ominous lyrics suitable for a horror movie. Nearly 50 years later, it’s remembered as one of AC/DC’s creepiest songs.
At the time of its release, “Night Prowler” was not part of AC/DC’s concert set list—at first perhaps due to the chaos of Scott’s sudden death in February 1980 and the rush to get the follow-up album, Back in Black, out with new lead singer Brian Johnson.
But the song’s fate was seemingly sealed a few years later when it was tied to a California serial killer.
According to Ultimate Classic Rock, “Night Prowler” became “a source of controversy” in the mid-’80s when serial killer Richard Ramirez, nicknamed the “Night Stalker,” said he was “a huge fan of the band.”
In 1985, The Los Angeles Times described the “Night Prowler” as “the song that reportedly obsessed the man suspected of the Night Stalker killings.”
There was no denying that Ramirez was an AC/DC fan. UPI reported that in interviews, the convicted killer claimed Highway to Hell was his favorite album, and an AC/DC hat belonging to him was reportedly discovered at a crime scene. But the outlet also noted, “The link between Ramirez and this song was mostly a media creation.”
While AC/DC never played “Night Prowler” live, Malcolm Young made the song’s intent clear in an attempt to distance his band from the killings.
“The song is not called ‘Night Stalker,’ it’s called ‘Night Prowler,'” the guitarist stated on VH1’s Behind the Music, per UCR. “It’s about things you used to do when you were a kid, like sneaking into a girlfriend’s room when her parents were asleep.”
Ramirez was captured in 1985 and convicted in 1989 of 13 Los Angeles-area murders and was sentenced to death, according to ABC 7. He died of liver failure while on San Quentin’s death row in 2013 at age 53.
Related: 1980 Rock Classic, Written Weeks After Singer’s Death, Is Suddenly Climbing the Charts 46 Years Later
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