5 Songs That Take Boomers Back To Their Wildest Nights

Elders used to party hardy. Boomers come from the Summer of Love generation, after all. That means psychedelics, birth control, and house parties, as many boomers recall with fondness. All it takes is one refrain from a beloved song from days past to take them back to those wildest of nights. 

That's our main criterion for choosing such songs, right there. An elegiac masterpiece like Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides, Now" exudes beauty, but it's not going to make the kids jump up and lose their minds and guzzle cups of whatever boomers drank from before red Solo cups existed (actually, those have been around since the '70s). No, we're talking about straight-up bangers that'll give boomers party flashbacks to those stereotypically core pillars of young adulthood: alcohol, partying, and sex. We're also targeting the formative years of all boomers, born 1946 to 1964, which includes early boomers and Generation Jonesers. All genres are on the table, too. 

Predictably, we've got top songs from party bands Kiss and AC/DC, the latter of whom overlap a bit with Gen X but still put out music when the youngest of boomers were young adults. We've also got a couple of well-treaded, but spot-on disco songs, and even the ultimate rock 'n' roll track from none other than the Beatles.

This song had to be here, right? Kiss' "Rock and Roll All Nite" from 1975's "Dressed to Kill" is the ultimate turn-off-your-brain wild night tune, right down to the misspelled title, Gene Simmons' flapping tongue, and lyrics so drunk that they can't do much but repeat themselves about 1,000 times. Seriously, guys, we get it. You wanna rock and roll all night and party every day. Great. Here's another drink. Shoo.

Unsurprisingly, "Rock and Roll All Nite" came from a place about as complicated as its subject matter. As Blabbermouth quotes Kiss guitarist and writer Paul Stanley, "I love a good glass of wine and I love some alcohol from time to time ... It was, 'I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day. I wanna have a great time and make the most of life.'" Well, there you have it. Boomers at the time didn't necessarily take to the song right away, though. It went nowhere on release, despite being tailored for anthemic sing-alongs. Only later did the song change from flop to hit when it got released on "Alive!," Kiss' live album from the same year as "Dressed to Kill." That version went to No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Some boomers consider Kiss a garbage "novelty act," as one user says on a Reddit thread, while others consider them diecast rock band garbed in a costumed gimmick. But judging by "Rock and Roll All Nite's" 616 million listens on Spotify, plenty of people rock out (and definitely rocked out) to them. Now, though, it's probably more, "I wanna rock and roll till 9 p.m., and party once a year."

No matter that AC/DC hit their stride in the '80s, they're a cross-generational band. They put out their debut, "T.N.T.," in 1975, the same year as Kiss did "Dressed to Kill." Naturally, boomers born at the tail end of their generation (1964) would have been party hardying to 1980's "You Shook Me All Night Long" when they were in the mid-teens. The song from "Back in Black" might have only reached No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 — high but not super high — but charts don't really tell the impact of AC/DC. Their top five Spotify songs, three of which top 2 billion streams, and 39 million monthly listeners, do. AC/DC is easily one of the top boomer bands for wild nights.

At least, AC/DC became this kind of band when Brian Johnson joined the group in 1980 after the tragic death of former singer Ben Scott. As Johnson told Absolute Radio, "You Shook Me All Night Long" was the first song he lyrically contributed to the band, building on guitarist Angus Young's undeniably hooky riff. That riff, plus Johnson's delivery, and the band's entire energy all fit together magnificently. 

The song's lyrical subject matter speaks for itself: "She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean / She was the best damn woman that I ever seen." This was the whole appeal of AC/DC, who made their mark with 90% attitude and awestruck first impressions (perhaps thunderstruck), as a forum on AC/DC Fans relates. No one on such forums goes into the details of midnight dealings of yore set to Johnson's raspy voice, but it's not hard to imagine (though maybe you don't want to).

We've all been there. You're at a barbecue, house party, family get-together, what have you, and there's a tipsy boomer twirling to "Dancing Queen," wine spritzer in hand. Okay, maybe you haven't, but it fits, no? ABBA's lyrics seem like they're speaking to each listener, declaring, "You are the dancing queen" (though no longer 17). Yes, Aunt Helen, we get it. Now, please stop spilling your drink.

Released on ABBA's "Arrival" from 1976, "Dancing Queen" hit the public just when disco emerged from New York City's dance club scene  into popular culture. The timing was perfect, the song was innocuous and actually rather mid-tempo and mellow, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Plus, no matter that "Dancing Queen" may have accompanied boomers of various ages (early teens to near-30s) through some wild nights, there's something sophisticated and even restrained/subdued about the song. It's bright and free-feeling, but not out of control. The song's subject matter also talks about nothing more PG-rated than a girl on the dance floor looking for a guy: "Friday night and the lights are low / Looking out for a place to go," "Anybody could be that guy / Night is young and the music's high," etc. Sounds like the soundtrack for some innocent young-uns' wide-eyed yesteryears.

Not that many would say so. ABBA is one of those hush-hush bands that it's embarrassing for some folks to admit that they liked back in the day — except for those boomers who now proclaim it loudly on public settings like Facebook. It's okay. Your secret will remain safe until the next barbecue.

"You should be dancing, yeah / Dancing, yeah," the Bee Gees told would-be disco-goers via 1976's "Children of the World" and the soundtrack for 1977's "Saturday Night Fever." Those lyrics sound like what young boomers in need of a night out told themselves before hitting the town. And indeed, the Bee Gees defined a huge chunk of musical experience of the mid-to-late '70s, scoring the most No. 1 hits of the entire decade, at nine (eight of those come from 1975 to 1979). That means that even if all a boomer did on a Saturday night in 1977 was go out, dance, and go home sweaty and substance-free, the Gibb brothers were probably aurally present at some point.

Sure, some rock fans despised the Bee Gees and disco on a whole, but plenty of people loved them (even if they didn't want to admit it, much like ABBA). One boomer on Facebook describes going to a club on Saturday night that had a "teen night" and just enjoying the disco ball hanging from the ceiling, clothing, and so forth. That's all rather innocent and nothing at all like what AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" delves into. But it's certainly fun, very much locked to its time, and tells the tale of nights long gone. 

The brevity of disco's time in the sun (dead by 1979, essentially), plus the ubiquity of the Bee Gees, all but guarantees that any mention of disco will bring them to mind. And what song could better snap folks back to that time than a song with a title that acts like a recommendation: "You Should Be Dancing"?

"Twist and Shout," aka the Beatles reprise '50s rock, proved that the Fab Four weren't just a quartet of floppy-haired youths from Liverpool who wanted to hold your hand. "Twist and Shout" was a straight-up, rock-out song. And even though young boomers in 1964 — when the song hit No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 — might not have had the wildest of nights in comparison to mid-'70s Kiss listeners, "Twist and Shout" is ideally suited to all manner of youthful, frantic antics. Propelled by John Lennon's eyebrow-raisingly raw, powerful belting, it's one of the most irrepressibly energetic songs in memory and really can't help but make all but the dead move.

Funny enough, "Twist and Shout" is also a cover, preceded by other prominent covers from the likes of Chuck Berry and the Isley Brothers. The original came from the Top Notes in 1961.  By the time the Beatles included it as the final track on their 1963 U.K. debut, "Please Please Me," the song had already been in circulation for a couple years. As soon as the Beatles took it over and made it their own, famed single-take recording story included (Lennon's voice was almost gone), the song instantly became what we could arguably define as the greatest OG rock 'n' roll song, period. The band even used it to close their concerts with a bang.

In this way, even if boomers don't associate "Twist and Shout" with any specific night or event, it soundtracks the sentiment of an entire musical epoch: Beatlemania. Rocking out was in, and opting out of rocking out was out.