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Joan Jett - Make It Back

Joan Jett - Make It Back Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Unvarnished
Released: 2013

Make It Back Lyrics

Make It Back

This song finds Jett recalling the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, which swept through the northeastern United States in 2012. The singer witnessed the storm whilst at her beachside home in Long Beach, New York. She explained to Rolling Stone: "I live in a town called Long Beach. I'm a hundred feet from the water. Right now, I'm looking at the ocean. So we're very exposed here. My town, and Rockaway, which is right next to me – everybody around us got smashed. It really gave me a sense of what it's like when people go through disasters like Sandy. Florida deals every year with hurricanes. Tornados in the midwest. Flooding in Iowa. You don't really have a sense of it until you live it yourself. It really was quite devastating and you saw people lose everything, and their spirit was just broken. Then something kind of shifts, and people realize that they don't have anything to do but try to build it back and create from destruction."

Joan Jett - I Hate Myself For Loving You

Joan Jett - I Hate Myself For Loving You Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Up Your Alley
Released: 1988

I Hate Myself For Loving You Lyrics

Midnight, gettin' uptight. Where are you?
You said you'd meet me, now it's quarter to two
I know I'm hangin' but I'm still wantin' you.

Hey, Jack, It's a fact they're talkin' in town.
I turn my back and you're messin' around.
I'm not really jealous, don't like lookin' like a clown.

I think of you every night and day.
You took my heart, then you took my pride away.

I Hate Myself For Loving You.
Can't break free from the the things that you do.
I want to walk but I run back to you, that's why
I hate myself for loving you.

Daylight, spent the night without you.
But I've been dreamin' 'bout the lovin' you do.
I won't be as angry 'bout the hell you put me through.

Hey, man, bet you can treat me right.
You just don't know what you was missin' last night.
I want to see your face and say forget it just from spite.

I hate myself for loving you .
Can't break free from the the things that you do.
I want to walk but I run back to you, that's why
I hate myself for loving you.

I hate myself for loving you.
Can't break free from the things that you do.
I want to walk but I run back to you, that's why
I hate myself for loving you.

I think of you every night and day.
You took my heart, then you took my pride away.

I hate myself for loving you.
Can't break free from the the things that you do.
I want to walk but I run back to you, that's why
I hate myself for loving you.
I hate myself for loving you.
I hate myself for loving you.

Writer/s: CHILD, DESMOND/JETT, JOAN /
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Hate Myself For Loving You

Joan Jett's producer Kenny Laguna told us that Joan came up with the guitar riff for this song and wrote it as "I Hate Myself Because I Can't Get Laid." She took it to the writer/producer Desmond Child , who thought the title would never fly and convinced Joan to change it to something with "Love" in the title. Child, who got a co-writing credit on the song, knows something about the hit potential of love: he also co-wrote "I Was Made For Lovin' You" for Kiss and "You Give Love A Bad Name" for Bon Jovi. He has a knack for finding the right hook and making a song sound larger than life.

Desmond Child is a prolific songwriter and producer who has gone on to work with Ricky Martin, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Cher, and many others. Kenny Laguna, who has worked with Joan Jett since she started her solo career, explains how they got Child to work with them: "There was a friend of ours at Epic Records who was friends with Desmond, and before the Bon Jovi record came out, he played me the song 'Livin On A Prayer.' I said, 'Whoa, I want to meet this guy,' so I started chasing Desmond around. He didn't want any part of it because he was busy looking for really important acts like Michael Bolton. I just chased him around until he couldn't take it anymore. There was something about his style I liked, it reminded me of The Four Seasons. Sure enough, he had worked with Bob Crewe."

When we spoke with Desmond, he said, "I had really strong mentors, like Bob Crewe, who taught me how to analyze the structure of songs so that even though you're emotionally invested in it, you also have to have a detachment - there can be no ego."

Mick Taylor, who was the lead guitarist in The Rolling Stones in the early '70s, played guitar on this track, including the solo.

Pink recorded a version of this song for use on NBC's Sunday Night Football in 2006. In her version, the lyrics are changed to "Waiting all day for Sunday night." The next year, Faith Hill took over from Pink. In 2013, she was replaced by Carrie Underwood.

In Steven Tyler's 2011 book Does The Noise In My Head Bother You?, the Aerosmith frontman tells the story about showing up naked at Joan Jett's hotel room door while they were touring together. When she opened, he said, "I hate myself for loving you," and was soundly rejected.

This was featured in the movies Striptease (1996) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009). It also appeared in a 2002 episode of Dawson's Creek.

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation

Joan Jett - Bad Reputation Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Bad Reputation
Released: 1981

Bad Reputation Lyrics

I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
You're living in the past it's a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do and that's
What I'm gonna do
An' I don't give a damn 'bout my Bad Reputation

Oh no not me
An' I don't give a damn 'bout my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
An' I'm only doin' good
When I'm havin' fun
An' I don't have to please no one
An' I don't give a damn
'Bout my bad reputation

Oh no, not me
Oh no, not me

I don't give a damn
'Bout my reputation
I've never been afraid of any deviation
An' I don't really care
If ya think I'm strange
I ain't gonna change
An' I'm never gonna care
'Bout my bad reputation

Oh no, not me
Oh no, not me

Pedal boys!
An' I don't give a damn
'Bout my reputation
The world's in trouble
There's no communication
An' everyone can say
What they want to say
It never gets better anyway
So why should I care
'Bout a bad reputation anyway
Oh no, not me
Oh no, not me

I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation
You're living in the past
It's a new generation
An' I only feel good
When I got no pain
An' that's how I'm gonna stay
An' I don't give a damn
'Bout my bad reputation

Oh no, not me
Oh no, not
Not me, not me

Writer/s: JOAN JETT, RITCHIE CORDELL, MARTIN KUPERSMITH, KENNETH BENJAMIN LAGUNA
Publisher: BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Bad Reputation

Jett wrote this with Kenny Laguna, who produced the album and helped her establish a solo career after her group, The Runaways, broke up. In our interview with Laguna, he said: "It's about Joan having been kind of a wild woman in The Runaways, and us trying to make a record deal, going around having people say, 'No, she's too crazy, like the punks and nazis.' Joan had this bad reputation, no label would sign her - that's why we own the records. It was so frustrating, we thought we should write a song about it. One day Joan said something and I said, 'You shouldn't do this.' I was trying to give her the advice of an old man, but she was a teenager at the time, and she says, 'Look, I don't care about my bad reputation.' I said, 'Whoa, there's the song.'"

This song made a very bold statement, establishing Jett as an independent-minded rocker with no concern for traditional gender roles in rock. Her co-writer Kenny Laguna told us: "'I don't give a damn about my reputation, it's a new generation,' that was the whole thing, a girl could do what she wants to do. When she was singing those lyrics, it was radical because there were no girls doing anything other than what they were supposed to do, they were all supposed to be like the girl groups. They were supposed to be dainty, wear dresses. They weren't supposed to play instruments. The song was definitely autobiographical."

Laguna had worked for The Who's European record company and was friends with the band. The Who fronted money so he and Jett could make the album, which was called Joan Jett. In Europe, the album was released on a German label called Ariola Records. They didn't want to use this song as a single, and instead released "Jezebel" and "You Don't Know What You Got." They didn't do very well and Laguna bought the record back from Ariola for $10,000. In the US, they released the album on their own label, Blackheart Records, and changed the track order so this led off the album.

Joan Jett made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 and developed a reputation as a leading lady of rock, but around this time, she was struggling to get noticed and trying to get airplay.

Kenny Laguna told us how this song ended up on one very influential station, which gave it the push it needed. "I remember Dan Neer, who was one of the top DJs in New York at WNEW, his girlfriend was helping us out with publicity," he said. "She brought him down to see Joan play in Brooklyn and he left after three songs - I thought he hated it. The next day WNEW started playing 'Bad Reputation,' which is not the song we wanted them to play, we wanted them to play 'Do You Wanna Touch Me,' but it became their breakout song of the week. In those days, the AOR stations were alternative, but real alternative, not like today's alternative which is really a Top 40 format and is all about record company priorities. These guys were playing something on an independent label. Every time a station didn't want to play 'Touch Me' or burned it out, we would make them play 'Bad Reputation.' That was the beginning of the song becoming known. Then there were a few bands that covered it, and it just took off."

When this started getting airplay, it attracted the attention of record labels and Jett signed a deal with Boardwalk Records. The album was then remixed and the title was changed to Bad Reputation. The next year, Jett released "I Love Rock And Roll," which was a huge hit, but not the one Jett wanted to be known for the rest of her life - she didn't write that one.

This became Jett's signature song, and although it's very well known, it was never released as a single.

Speaking about recording this song, Kenny Laguna said: "We tried to do one of those speedy punk rock songs. The day we recorded it, we didn't know it too well, we just managed to get a good drum track. Joan had to play all the guitars - the rhythm track was pretty good. I put on like a Jerry Lee Lewis piano, but until the piano went on, it really sounded kind of unfinished."

This was the theme song to the NBC TV show Freaks And Geeks. The show was about a group of kids trying to deal with high school. It was canceled after one season in 1999-2000, but had a large cult following and was praised by critics who felt it would have gotten better ratings if NBC gave it a chance.

Some of the movies this has been used in include Shrek, Wonderland, Kingpin Baby Mama, Kick-Ass and 10 Things I Hate About You. It's very popular for scenes that portray an outcast in a lighthearted way.

The MMA champion fighter Ronda Rousey uses this song as her entrance theme.

When Jett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, she was the first to perform at the ceremony, and opened her set with this song.

Joan Jett - I Love Rock And Roll

Joan Jett - I Love Rock And Roll Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: I Love Rock And Roll
Released: 1981

I Love Rock And Roll Lyrics

I Love Rock And Roll

This was originally recorded by a British group called The Arrows in 1975, and it was written by their lead singer Alan Merrill and guitarist Jake Hooker. Merrill explained in a Songfacts interview how this song came about: "That was a knee-jerk response to the Rolling Stones' 'It's Only Rock 'N' Roll.' I remember watching it on Top of the Pops. I'd met Mick Jagger socially a few times, and I knew he was hanging around with Prince Rupert Lowenstein and people like that – jet setters. I almost felt like 'It's Only Rock and Roll' was an apology to those jet-set princes and princesses that he was hanging around with - the aristocracy, you know. That was my interpretation as a young man: Okay, I love rock and roll. And then, where do you go with that?"

The song was released as a B-side with The Arrows' "Broken Down Heart." The group was recording for RAK Records, which was run by Mickie Most. As Merrill explains, "I Love Rock And Roll" didn't suit his current tastes, as during that time Most preferred ballads and blues. Most's wife Christina Hayes encouraged him to flip the sides, but the song didn't catch on, as it suffered from a poor run of luck at the time of its release. First, it had to be re-released as an A-side. Second, the song came out during an English newspaper strike, so new songs weren't getting the exposure they'd normally get. Third, The Arrows were feuding with their record label. As a result, the song didn't chart and was banished to obscurity.

All was not lost, however, as The Arrows performed this song when they were guests on the UK TV series Pop 45. The show's producer, Muriel Young, was so impressed that on the strength of this performance, she gave them their own TV show, simply called The Arrows Show, which ran from 1976-1977 in the UK for two full 14-week seasons on the ITV network. It was this show that Joan Jett saw in 1976, which prompted her to acquire a copy of "I Love Rock and Roll" and later cover it in 1981, producing what is arguably one of the most successful covers in rock history.

Jett was touring England as a member of an all teenage girl group called The Runaways when she discovered this song. She wanted to record it with The Runaways, but the other members didn't like the song and made the mistake of passing it up. So, in 1979, Jett recorded it with Paul Cook and Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols and released it as a B-side. Finally, in 1981, Jett recorded the song with her band The Blackhearts, resulting in a monster hit.

Jett recalled to Uncut August 2010 her version with the Pistols duo: "I did a very early version with them, it was great working with them, and no, there was no sense of trepidation on my part, despite the fact that everyone was telling me they were the most notorious band on the planet."

Alan Merrill: "I had the chorus, which to me sounded like a hit. And I thought, I'll do something really unusual. I'll write it that this is a song separate from the verse. So the actual chorus is something that's coming out of a jukebox, and the two kids in the disco who are flirting are hearing this song that's a hit. It felt like The Twilight Zone. I was so sure 'I Love Rock and Roll' was gonna be a hit for the Arrows that I thought, Well, when we have a hit with it, it's gonna be a hit within a hit. A fictional hit coming out of the chorus with the kids singing it as their favorite song in the verse of the song. So when it actually became a huge hit for Joan Jett, my Twilight Zone concept came true. And I don't think too many people get that about the song, you know? They just like the melody, and it's catchy. But it was actually a pretty clever stroke, one that I'm proud of." (Want to find out what shot down The Arrows and see them in action? Check out our full interview with Alan Merrill .)

When the Runaways broke up, Joan Jett and her producer Kenny Laguna put her first solo album together with studio time and travel arrangements fronted by The Who. They struggled to get a record deal and had to form their own label, Blackheart Reocrds, to release the album in America. Jett and Laguna both thought "I Love Rock and Roll" was a great song, but since they didn't have the backing of a major label, they held off on it until they could establish themselves and get better distribution. When "Do You Wanna Touch Me" and "Bad Reputation" started getting airplay, they got a deal with Boardwalk Records. That first album, which was called Joan Jett, was remixed and renamed Bad Reputation. Now that she had a record deal, Jett released "I Love Rock and Roll," which was her first single on a major label and was included on her second album.

The Runaways' bass player Michael Steele went on to join the Bangles, and their guitarist Lita Ford had a successful solo career, but Joan Jett emerged as their most famous alumna. Kenny Laguna plays a big part in her story, as he helped Jett get started as a solo artist and worked with her throughout most of her solo career. In 1972, after working with acts like Tommy James & the Shondells and Tony Orlando, Kenny was looking for work and found it through Peter Meaden, who managed The Who when they were still known as The High Numbers. Meaden got Kenny a job working at Mobile Records in England, where he became friends with The Who and met The Runaways' manager, who asked him to produce what would be their last album. Kenny didn't work on that album, but when The Runaways broke up, he started working with Jett. Peter Meaden, who introduced Kenny to The Who and helped revive his career, was the manager of The Arrows, the group that wrote and originally recorded "I love Rock and Roll." If Kenny had accepted the job and produced The Runaways' last album, there is a good chance he would have made them record it, since he thought it was a hit.

Jett's 1979 version of the song was owned by The Polygram company, who were not enthusiastic about Joan or the song. Laguna explains: "They could care less about Joan Jett, they were busy signing every other Runaway. They thought Joan was the loser and they signed the other girls, who we're all friends with, but I looked at the band and thought she was the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the band. The company decided that if I would pay the studio cost of $2,300, I could have all the rights, and I got three songs. I got 'I Love Rock and Roll' with The Sex Pistols, I got 'You Don't Own Me' - they did a great version of the Lesley Gore hit, and they did a song Joan wrote called 'Don't Abuse Me.' So I buy these songs back. In the meantime, Joan has a couple of fans. Rodney Bingenheimer of K-ROCK, KMAC in Long Beach, BCN in Boston, LIR in Long Island, they were playing The Sex Pistols' kind of cruddy version of the song, and it was #1 on the alternative stations. It was really alternative music, they were way-out stations that would play some pretty adventurous stuff, that's why they would play Joan, because Joan was not getting a record deal, Joan was way on the outside, like a Fugazi of her day. We saw some kind of potential there. I remember these guys from the big record distributors in Long Island kept calling and saying, 'This is a hit record, we're getting so many requests for it.' So we cut it over and did a really good version of it." (The above two Songfacts come from our interview with Kenny Laguna)

In the original version, the lyrics are about a guy picking up a young girl and taking her home, which was fairly typical rock and roll subject matter. When Jett covered this, however, it became a song about a girl who notices a guy next to a jukebox and brings him home to have sex. Other hit songs like "Physical" by Olivia Newton John and "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Pat Benatar also had sexual overtones, but Jett sang about aggressively pursuing the guy, which for many women made this a female-empowerment anthem. This song helped shape Jett's image as a tough, confident rock star and became an inspiration to many female musicians.

The line "Put another dime in the jukebox" was dated by the time Jett released her version, as very few jukeboxes took dimes. "Quarter" didn't sound good in the lyrics, and as jukeboxes slowly disappeared or became computerized contraptions accepting paper currency, it didn't matter anyway.

Jett's next two singles, "Crimson And Clover" and "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" were also covers of songs originally recorded by male singers. When Laguna worked with Bow Wow Wow, he had them record "I Want Candy," another song that had to be adapted for a female singer.

In the US, this was #1 for seven weeks in 1982. "Ebony And Ivory" by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney did the same a few weeks later.

The video was directed by Arnold Levine, who also did many of the Loverboy and Bruce Springsteen clips. Jett wore a red leather outfit to the shoot, which took place at New York club called Private's with an assortment of fans that showed up that day forming the crowd. When Jett and Levine looked at the edit, the colors were a mess, with way too much red and mauve in the shots because of poor fashion choices. This was not the rock and roll video they imagined, but when Jett saw the black-and-white work copy, she loved it. Without the color, the clip looked gritty and retro, which is what they were going for.

This black-and-white version stood out on MTV among far more colorful clips by the likes of the Go-Go's and The J. Geils Band. It became a huge hit on the network, which had launched just months earlier and was becoming a criterion of cool. The video helped send the song up the charts and establish an image for Jett as a rough-hewn rocker.

The color version, now available on YouTube, was released in 2003 on Jett's Real Wild Child video anthology.

In an interview with Mojo magazine January 2008, Jett looked back on this song: "I think most people who love some kind of rock 'n' roll can relate to it. Everyone knows a song that just makes them feel amazing and want to jump up and down. I quickly realized, this song is gonna follow you, so you're either gonna let it bother you, or you gotta make peace with it, and feel blessed that you were involved with something that touched so many people."

In 1998, Rolling Stone magazine reported that Jett, Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker made a very unusual financial move when they offered bonds secured by future royalties from this song. The story turned out to be very deceptive, as only Hooker was in on the deal, which never materialized.

This seems like a perfect fit for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance, but when Jett was inducted in 2015, she didn't play the song. Although it is by far her biggest hit, Jett has downplayed it throughout her career, typically performing it in the middle of sets while typically using "Bad Reputation" and "I Hate Myself For Loving You" as bookends.