One-hit wonders sometimes have a more lasting impact than chart-topping singles, as the English rock band Roxy Music released a 1975 track with one of the most famous basslines and sounds that helped define the genre.
“Love Is the Drug” was one of Roxy Music’s standout tracks as they made a name for themselves across Europe in the 1970s. The song is considered to have foundational elements of the glam rock genre that landed it at No.2 on the UK chart. By the following year, the song made it to the Billboard Hot 100 chart at No. 30.
There was a lot that went into the creation of the song’s lyrics, with frontman Bryan Ferry having told The Wall Street Journal that his original idea for the track was about a “young guy getting into his car and zooming off into town, looking for action at a club.”
Anyone who listens to the song would be able to hear how it starts with the sound of something walking across gravel. In tune with his original idea, Ferry came up with the song’s opening based on his own driveway.
“Outside my house, I had a gravel drive, and the crunching sound of the stones under my shoes were an inspiration,” he said. “We found the different sounds for the opening on various sound-effects library recordings – a car door slamming shut, the engine starting, and so on. Then we overdubbed them.”
Ferry would also find inspiration in his Trinidadian friend, Christian, who worked as a wardrobe assistant for the band. Christian was an “amusing, laid-back” guy who would always say, “T’ain’t no big t’ing.” Ferry liked the phrase so much that it became the opening line of the song.
“Love Is the Drug” actually began as a slow-tempo melody by saxophonist Andy Mackay, until Ferry and drummer Paul Thompson made it “more dance-y.” Ferry was always interested in disco tracks and became frustrated when the clubs he frequented weren’t playing their music. The 1975 track was his effort to create “something where you’d see people actually getting up to dance.”
As a whole, the track became a rock inspiration with one of the most famous basslines by John Gustafson. He developed it while listening to the band, and it even went on to inspire Chic’s “Good Times,” which in turn inspired Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”.
“They’d start clanking away, or Bryan would start clanging away on his Fender keyboard. He was just banging away on D minor and I stood there to see what the rest of them would do,” he explained.
“The drums joined in and I waited for about five minutes thinking, and just hit it straight away. It was slightly different from the rhythm they were doing and it sort of jolted them out of it into this poppy funky thing, and we carried on like that.”
Collider ranked “Love Is the Drug” on their list of the Greatest Classic Rock Songs that were one-hit wonders. The Roxy Music classic became a pop culture staple years later when included in Martin Scorsese‘s Casino, Zack Snyder‘s Sucker Punch, and series like Sex Education, Luther, and Glee.
Related: 1974 Rock Hit, Written by a 26-Year-Old in a Club’s Kitchen, Ranked as the Best Breakup Anthem of the ’70s
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