They Played Rock And Roll

This song was written about and dedicated to Motörhead, with whom Saxon toured back in 1979/80. The title comes from something Lemmy used to say on stage every night: "We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll!" A clip of him saying that is included in the song.

In a Songfacts interview with Saxon frontman Biff Byford, he said: "The very first tour we ever did was in 1979 and it was with Motörhead. We were a new band, just got our first album out and were about to release our second album, Wheels Of Steel, which went ballistic in sales over here. So, that tour for Saxon was a pivotal point in our very early career. We became friends with Motörhead - Lemmy, Eddie and Phil. In those days we used to hang out with them, used to stay at their house. But it was a very massive thing we did back then, so I wanted to write a song about it."

The lyric video contains footage from that famous Saxon/Motörhead tour, but also includes scenes that depict the civil unrest that was going on in England at the time. "It's a lyric video but it's not the normal lyric video," Byford said. "It's just letting people know what it was like in 1979/1980 in England, especially in the working class, north of England. It was chaos at that time and we came out of that and so did Motörhead."