Who Do You Love: Saturday Soundtrack

Though they are probably better known for their song Bad to the Bone, released in the 1980s, the first time I remember hearing George Thorogood and the Destroyers was was when I was an 11 or 12 year old boy living on the northern edge of Ukiah. I was hanging out with a girl who's favorite activity was "hanging out with Jack". (She was only a year older than me. Tells you what kind of town it was.) We were walking somewhere - to a swimming hole on the other side of a vineyard, I think - and she had a cassette player with her. She turned it on and I heard this remake of Bo Diddley's classic. One thing I like about George Thorogood is that he is proof the State of Delaware can produce more than a lying slithering assassin. (I love New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254. I wonder how much longer that case and the 1st Amendment will be law in this country. Probably not long.)

For my newer readers not familiar with the rules of the Saturday Soundtrack, a song must have been released prior to the cinematic release Saturday Night Fever to be included in the Saturday Soundtrack. (There are other rules, too.) This song, Who Do You Love, beat the wire by a few months, though I didn't hear it until a couple of years after John Travolta made Angel Flight pants all the rage on the west coast. (I think they had been popular on the east coast for a couple of years.)

An interesting thing about this song title is that the next time I encountered it was in Manhattan when I was 17. I was in the Hard Rock Cafe where I saw in a corner of the room a shrine unlike any I had ever seen before. (of course, at that age and having been raised a Pentecostal I hadn't seen many.) There was a statue of the Mary holding Jesus, a picture of Jesus on the Cross, a Star of David, a big dollar sign, a statue of Confucius, an "Om", a statue of Ganesh, a horse shoe, a statue of Buddha, and a hologram of Jim Morrison, who some people hold was an incarnation of Dionysus. Over all of that was a sign that asked, Who Do You Love? (It has been changed a little since I was there more than 20 years ago, but you can see a picture of it here.) It was weird. Anyway, here is the song.