"Heavy Music" is a song first released as a single by Bob Seger & The Last Heard

Bob Seger

Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...

. Two versions of the song with slight differences were released together on either side of the single, with the names "Heavy Music Part 1" and "Heavy Music Part 2." Both versions were later edited together and released on Seger's album Smokin' O.P.'s

Smokin' O.P.'s

Smokin' O.P.'s is an album by American rock singer/songwriter Bob Seger, released in 1972 . The album was reissued on CD by Capitol Records in 2005. It is currently the earliest Bob Seger album available on CD. The cover art is a parody of the Lucky Strike cigarette logo...

, long after his tenure with The Last Heard. An eight minute fourteen second-long live version of the song is featured on the album Live Bullet

Live Bullet

‘Live’ Bullet is a live album by American rock band Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, released in April 1976. It was recorded at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan, during the heyday of that arena's time as an important rock concert venue.-History:...

with the Silver Bullet Band.

Writing and Production

The song, on its most literal level, is about the specific act of listening to music and the emotions it evokes. Seger poses the questions: "Don't you ever listen to the radio when the big bad beat comes on?" and "Don't you ever feel like going insane when the drums begin to pound?" in the first and second verses, respectively. The lyric features a lot of vocal ad-libbing throughout, giving rise to a possible sexual connotation. The first words of the song are "Come on with me baby // we're gonna have a good time." Later, he says "I'm goin' in, I'm goin' in now," and other phrases to that effect. He also utters the word "deeper" about fifteen different times in the Smokin' O.P.'s version of the song. Seger himself, however, denies the sexual reading of the lyric: "A lot of people really misconstrued it. That was a song about the music, but a lot of people thought it was a song about music and sex, the two together. There was nothing sexual in it, it was simply read in by a lot of program directors. The part about 'goin' deeper.'"

At the end of "Heavy Music, Part 2," Seger sings the curious line: "NSU (as in the British psych-rock band), SRC, (another Detroit area band)], Stevie Winwood got nothing on me."

Perhaps the most distinctive and crucial aspect of the song is the bass line, played by both a bass guitar and a piano, which producer Doug Brown created for the song after Seger had written the lyric.

Success

The single proved to be Seger's most successful work to date, climbing to the number one position on the Detroit charts and gaining him some exposure outside of the Detroit area. For a time it looked like it would be Seger's ticket to a national breakthrough, until the label Cameo-Parkway went out of business just as the song was gaining popularity. Still, the success of "Heavy Music" aided in landing Seger his first contract with Capitol Records

Capitol Records

Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...

, and arguably gave him enough momentum to continue through the sloughs of his career.

Chart performance

Chart (1967)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	103
U.S. Cashbox	70