AC/DC Rejected Dirty Eyes, Instead Using The Same Riff For Whole Lotta Rosie

Plus The Only Known Photograph Of The Real Life “Rosie”

AC/DC’s singer / lyricist Bon Scott once described himself not as a poet, but more a bathroom graffiti writer.

Though Bon Scott was self effacing, he could look at his own work honestly to see if there was room for improvement. Scott would frequently write and rewrite lyrics in notebooks and record on portable tape recorder he carried with him.

In one case he took a good rock song and made it a great song by completely changing the lyrics..

Dirty Eyes was recorded in 1976 at Vineyard Studios in London but was rejected for their 1977 LP Let There Be Rock.

The band’s guitarists, the Young brothers, knew that their graffiti scribbler could improve upon the simplicity of these lyrics:

Honey
Yeah honey
You do it
Woooo, do it good
Do it all right
Every night
When you turn off the light
It’s outta sight
(alright)

The music and hook were retained and singer Bon Scott went ahead and wrote new lyrics. The resulting song Whole Lotta Rosie is the final track on Let There Be Rock. It is the true story of Scott having a one night stand with a sexually dominating, obese Tasmanian woman. Real life events resulting in clever lyrics vastly improve the simple Dirty Eyes.

Whole Lotta Rosie became a live staple of AC/DC concerts.

The legend of Rosie is preserved forever in the first two stanzas and memorable chorus.

Wanna tell you story
About woman I know
When it comes to lovin’
She steals the show
She ain’t exactly pretty
Ain’t exactly small
Forty two, thirty nine, fifty six
You could say she’s got it all

Never had a woman
Never had a woman like you
Doin’ all the things
Doin’ all the things you do
Ain’t no fairy story
Ain’t no skin and bones
But you give it all you got
Weighin’ in at nineteen stone

You’re a whole lotta woman
A whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
And you’re a whole lotta woman

Here is a blistering live version of Whole Lotta Rosie from the BBC’s Sight and Sound television program. The audio mix and camera work is superb considering this is from 1977. The performance is immaculately tight with Scott and band in top form.

And Rosie?

Whole Lotta Rosie -Rosie Garcia with Graeme Fry 1978 photo via jessefinkbooks.com

Rosie [Rose-Maree Carroll (Garcia)] had a tragic ending dying of a heroin overdose at age 22 on March 2, 1979. at St. Kilda, Australia. Though Rosie was large, around six foot two, she may not of weighed as much as Bon immortalized her in the song- 19 stone is 266 pounds.

The story of tracking down who Rosie was and this photograph of her is from jessefinkbooks,com

Bon Scott died less than a year later, “death by misadventure” from acute alcohol poisoning at age 32 on February 19, 1980.

After languishing in AC/DC’s vault for over 20 years, Dirty Eyes was finally released in 1997 on Bonfire, a five disc set commemorating what would have been Scott’s 50th birthday.