Detroit Rock City

Paul Stanley of Kiss wrote "Detroit Rock City" as a tribute to the music scene in that city, but when their producer, Bob Ezrin, heard the demo, he helped him rework the song into something far more complex. Breaking away from the partying-style lyrics that were typical of Kiss at the time, they made it a song about a young fan who is killed in a car accident on his way to a Kiss concert - a teen tragedy along the lines of the '60s hit "Last Kiss." The loud, driving beat of the music belies the seriousness of the lyrics. Stanley said: "On a previous tour somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena. I remember thinking how weird it is that people can be on their way to something that's really a party and a celebration of being alive, and die in the process of doing it. So that became the basis of the lyric." Stanley sings lead on the track.

The song opens with a vignette where we hear a radio news story about a youth who was killed in a head-on collision with a truck in Detroit. We then hear the sound of a car revving up and heading out, with the Kiss song "Rock And Roll All Nite" on the radio. Then the song kicks in, telling the story of this guy recklessly driving to the concert. In the end, we hear the crash and realize the news story was about him. "Detroit Rock City" is the first track on the Destroyer album, so the vignette is the first thing fans heard when they took the album home and dropped the needle. This non-traditional open was producer Bob Ezrin's idea. He wanted to turn the song into a mini-movie that tells a story.

The album version runs 5:18, but the single was cut down to 3:35, with the opening bit and the ending car crash removed. It was the third single from the album, following "Shout It Out Loud" and "Flaming Youth," and although it didn't chart in America, it became one of Kiss' most popular songs and a concert mainstay.