Balls to the Wall (song)

"Balls to the Wall" is a song by German heavy metal band Accept. It was released as the lead single from their 1983 fifth studio album of the same name. The anthemic title track is the album's best known song, and became Accept's signature song, for which a music video was shot that received American airplay on MTV.

This article is about the song by Accept. For the album, see Balls to the Wall.

"Balls to the Wall"
Single by Accept
from the album Balls to the Wall
B-side"Losing More Than You've Ever Had"
ReleasedApril 1984
Recorded1983
GenreHeavy metal
Length5:44 (album version)
4:28 (video edit)
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Accept
Accept singles chronology
"Love Child"
(1984)		 "Balls to the Wall"
(1984)		 "Metal Heart"
(1985)

Song meaning

Asked about the meaning of the song, guitarist Wolf Hoffmann replied:

"We've always been interested in politics and in human rights and things like that, so a lot of the lyrics that we had in those days, and to the end actually, were dealing with human rights, for instance, and that's really what 'Balls To The Wall' is all about. 'One day the tortured will stand up and kick some ass!'"[1]

Music video

Filmed in January 1984 in London, the song's music video consists of clips of the band performing the song onstage intercut with scenes of a wrecking ball taking down a clock tower and scenes with fans of the band headbanging against the wall of the tower. Later during the buildup to the final chorus, the fans march through the rubble of the tower, and presumably head towards the stage where the band is performing. At the end of the video, singer Udo Dirkschneider rides the wrecking ball into the tower and takes out the front doors of the building it stands upon. When he discussed the scene with songfacts.com, Dirkschneider explained he was apprehensive about riding the ball because of the cold, wintry conditions on the day of the shoot, but decided to do it in the end. "It was very cold in London, near the airport", Dirkschneider said, "And especially when I had to step on this wrecking ball. I said, 'Please, no, I don't want to do this!' But in the end, I was young so I said, 'Okay, here we go.' But it was freezing like hell".[2] The song was also edited down for the video, with the guitar solo and Dirkschneider's spoken bridge being removed. The video edit of the song clocks in at four minutes and twenty eight seconds long, while the album version is five minutes and forty four seconds long.

Legacy

The song has also been featured on two VH1 countdown shows: as Number 38 on the 40 Greatest Metal Songs, and as Number 29 on the 40 Most Awesomely Bad Metal Songs Ever. It is also on the in-game radio for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories on the "V-Rock" station, and appears as a playable track in the video game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, as a cover version. In this game, the word "ass" is censored, and replaced with "case" (and word "rape" was replaced with "fade").

The song was also covered by the following bands:

Udo Dirkschneider's and Stefan Kaufmann's band U.D.O. have performed the song at the end of their shows.

The song appeared on Beavis and Butt-Head in the 1993 episode "Tornado", and was also featured in the 2008 film The Wrestler.

Track listing
No.TitleLength
1."Balls to the Wall"5:44
2."Losing More Than You've Ever Had"5:04

Personnel

Accept

References
  1. Antunovich, Tony (27 November 2005). "Interviews - Accept - Wolf Hoffman". Metal Eater. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2009.
  2. http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9304
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