Dirty White Boy

This song was written by Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones and lead singer Lou Gramm. Who was the "Dirty White Boy"? Jones told us: "It was Elvis Presley. To me, he always was that dirty white boy who changed the shape of music completely. It was talking about the kind of heritage that he left, and I think that had an effect on all the musicians that came after, like Mick Jagger - he was also a dirty white boy. Elvis paved the way for all that." (Check out our interview with Mick Jones.)

This was the lead single from Head Games, which was the third Foreigner album. On the cover was a photo of a young woman backed into a urinal in a men's bathroom, trying to erase her phone number from the wall. This didn't go over well with some record store owners and radio stations, especially in the Bible Belt. "Dirty White Boy" was a bit controversial, since race was still a fairly taboo subject in popular music. The album didn't reach the highs of their first two releases and didn't produce any Top 10 singles, but it still eventually sold over 5 million copies. The group's next album, 4, was far less controversial and much more radio friendly.