Gen X Reflex: Wait... Is That a Cannon?
The songs our bodies recognize before our brains do.
There are a lot of songs I could nominate as rock-and-roll anthems for the youth of Gen X.
And trust me, we're going to get to them.
But there's one that comes to mind when I think about the sheer spirit of rock and roll.
It's loud.
It's proud.
It's a little crazy.
And it isn't particularly interested in delivering a complicated message.
No judgment.
No great call to action.
No commentary on society.
This song basically has one thing to say:
We're about to rock.
Prepare yourselves accordingly.
And apparently, we're going to need cannons.
Welcome back to Gen X Reflex, the songs our bodies recognize before our brains do.
Today, we're talking about AC/DC's “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).”
Before I Knew AC/DC
Technically, AC/DC entered my life before I had any idea who AC/DC was.
I can thank my older brother Mike for that.
Mike had a morning routine.
We had one of those advanced stereo systems that seemed very high-tech at the time. You could set the turntable so the needle hovered over the record, and at the appointed hour, the system would come to life and the needle would drop into the groove.
Yes, my younger readers.
We once programmed needles to wake us up.
This was technology.
My brother Mike's chosen morning wake-up song?
“Highway to Hell.”
Imagine, if you will, young Angel.
Rock and roll had not really entered the conversation for me yet. I was listening to Earth, Wind & Fire and other music that lived much more comfortably in the world I knew.
Then morning comes.
Needle drops.
And apparently we're taking the highway to hell.
This was a lot to process before breakfast.
I didn't know who this band was.
I wasn't even entirely sure what I thought of the song.
It was loud. It was aggressive. It was a little much for me.
But I remembered it.
And soon I started noticing something.
Who the Hell Is AC/DC?
At school, we had cliques.
Kids still have them, of course, although the names and boundaries change.
One of ours was the rockers.
And overlapping with the rockers were the kids we called stoners.
Oh, we're going to talk about that particular piece of Gen X culture one day.
But these kids had AC/DC shirts.
They wrote AC/DC on things.
You'd see that unmistakable logo in graffiti and on notebooks and jackets.
AC/DC was apparently a THING.
I understood AC and DC from the world of electricity.
Alternating current.
Direct current.
Fine.
But why was everybody wearing it on a shirt?
There was also a young man at school who used to talk to me.
I was nerdy and not exactly swimming in boyfriend experience, so I just thought he was a nice boy who liked talking to me.
Looking back on it with decades of additional wisdom...
That boy was flirting with me.
Completely missed it.
My apologies, young man, wherever you are.
Apparently my romantic detection system had not yet been installed.
But he liked AC/DC.
And he talked about them.
Then AC/DC came to town.
The rockers were going.
The stoners were going.
Everybody seemed excited about this concert.
I didn't go.
Monday came, and suddenly all those kids returned to school wearing AC/DC concert shirts.
Remember, concert shirts meant something.
They weren't just fashion.
They were evidence.
I WAS THERE.
They had entered the temple and returned with artifacts.
I had not.
And I still didn't entirely understand what the fuss was about.
Then that boy played me a song.
The Bus Stop
We were off campus, walking toward the bus stop, and somehow a boombox entered the equation.
Another magnificent piece of Gen X technology.
He played AC/DC.
The song was “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You).”
And at first...
Okay.
There's this guitar.
Picking.
Almost mechanical.
Repetitive.
Interesting.
Then the drums begin working their way into it.
The song keeps building.
And there is this sense that something is coming.
Then:
Wait.
What was that?
Is that...
A CANNON?
Oh, come on.
Now you've got me.
Sometimes Rock Just Needs to Rock
“For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” was released on AC/DC's 1981 album of the same name, the band's second album with Brian Johnson as lead singer.
And there is something almost ceremonial about the song.
It doesn't simply start.
It assembles itself.
The guitars establish the march.
The drums build beneath them.
Brian Johnson starts calling everyone to attention.
And eventually the whole thing erupts.
Cannons and all.
What I love about the song now is probably what eventually got me then.
Sometimes music needs to make us think.
Sometimes it needs to challenge us.
Sometimes it needs to say something important about politics or society or injustice or love or loss or the human condition.
And sometimes...
we need somebody to fire a damn cannon and tell us it's time to rock.
That's allowed too.
There is joy in that.
There is release in that.
There is something wonderfully uncomplicated about giving yourself over to a song whose entire purpose seems to be celebrating the fact that you, the band and everybody around you have gathered together for rock and roll.
Stand up.
Be counted.
Here it comes.
Before Brian, There Was Bon
Of course, I didn't understand any of the history when my brother's stereo was waking the house with “Highway to Hell.”
The voice I was hearing belonged to Bon Scott.
Scott had joined AC/DC in 1974 and helped establish the swaggering, mischievous, blues-soaked sound of their early years. By the time Highway to Hell arrived in 1979, AC/DC was breaking internationally.
Then, in February 1980, Bon Scott died.
He was 33.
For many bands, that would have been the end.
How do you lose the voice at the center of a band just as you're reaching another level of success and simply continue?
AC/DC eventually decided to try.
Brian Johnson became their new singer.
Then came Back in Black.
Released only months after Scott's death, the album was created in his shadow and became both a tribute to him and the beginning of an extraordinary second life for the band.
And then, the following year, came For Those About to Rock We Salute You.
By the time that boy played the song for me on the way to the bus stop, I wasn't simply hearing a loud rock band.
I was hearing a band that had already survived.
I just didn't know it yet.
They Understood the Assignment
As I've gotten older, I've developed a different appreciation for AC/DC.
Because they understood something about rock and roll.
It isn't only music.
It's theater.
It's attitude.
It's ritual.
It's a logo you recognize from across the room.
It's Angus Young running around in a schoolboy uniform like someone accidentally gave a guitar to the most energetic child at recess.
It's the duckwalk.
It's Brian Johnson's unmistakable voice.
It's enormous amplifiers.
It's a giant bell descending during “Hells Bells.”
And yes.
It's cannons.
Actual freaking cannons.
There's almost something ridiculous about it.
And that's part of why it works.
AC/DC doesn't seem embarrassed by the excess of rock and roll.
They embrace it.
They don't appear to be standing onstage saying, We understand this is all a little silly.
No.
They're saying:
You bought a ticket to an AC/DC concert.
We assume you came here for AC/DC.
So let's blow the roof off the place.
I respect that.
A Phrase Bigger Than the Song
And AC/DC gave rock culture something else.
For those about to rock, we salute you.
The phrase escaped the song.
You don't even need to be talking about AC/DC anymore.
Say it before somebody picks up a guitar.
Say it before a band walks onstage.
Say it to a group of musicians getting ready to perform.
People know what you mean.
It's become almost a benediction of rock and roll.
Go forth.
Make noise.
We salute you.
That's an anthem.
The Concert I Missed
Unlike Queen...
Unlike Rush...
I never saw AC/DC live. At least not yet.
And I wish I had.
That's one of my misses in this long relationship I've had with rock and roll.
There are concerts you remember.
There are concerts you're grateful you somehow managed to attend.
And then there are the ones you look back on and think:
Damn.
I would have liked to have been in that room.
AC/DC is one of mine.
That boy went.
The rockers went.
The stoners went.
They came back Monday wearing their shirts.
I didn't understand what I had missed yet.
Now I do.
And perhaps that's part of looking back at the soundtrack of your life.
You don't only remember the things you did.
Sometimes you remember the doors you didn't walk through.
And Somehow They're Still Rocking
Here's the part that makes me smile.
As I write this in August 2026, AC/DC is still out there.
Angus Young is still playing.
Brian Johnson is still singing.
The lineup around them has changed. Time has taken Bon Scott, Malcolm Young and others who helped create the band's history.
But the music hasn't quietly retired to classic-rock radio.
AC/DC is on the road right now with its PWR UP tour.
And just days ago, on August 5, they returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and played Levi's Stadium.
Decades after that boy at my school went to see AC/DC and came back wearing his concert shirt, another generation of Bay Area fans walked into a stadium to see them.
There were families there.
Kids.
Parents.
People wearing those familiar devil horns.
Angus still did the duckwalk.
The bell still came down.
And when they reached “For Those About to Rock”...
the cannons still fired.
I love that more than I can explain.
Because that's the other thing about these Gen X Reflex songs.
They belong to our memories.
But they aren't trapped there.
The music kept moving.
Sometimes the bands did too.
Does It Still Work?
So let's perform the test.
I'm minding my business.
Then...
Guitar.
That deliberate little pattern begins.
My brain hasn't finished identifying it yet.
It doesn't need to.
Head comes up.
There's the smile.
Ohhhh.
AC/DC.
I know what's coming.
The anticipation is almost as important as the explosion.
The song builds.
The drums come in.
Everything gets bigger.
And somewhere inside me is that girl standing near a bus stop, listening to a boy play this ridiculous band everybody else apparently knew about.
Only now she knows what's coming.
Wait for it.
Wait for it...
BOOM.
Yep.
Still works.
Reflex intact.
And young Angel?
That boy was flirting with you.
Good grief.
You really did miss everything that day.
Thanks for taking another trip back with me.
What's your AC/DC memory? Did you see them live? Were you one of those kids who came to school Monday morning wearing the concert shirt while the rest of us realized we'd missed something?
And what song triggers your Gen X Reflex?
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Until next time...
Keep the memories alive.Keep the stories coming.And whatever you do... turn it up.
— Dr. AY Heath (Angel)
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