Songoftheday 10/20/14 - Ain't got no rap ain't got no line, but if you'll give me just a minute I'll be feelin' fine...

ZZ Top - "Rough Boy"
from the album Afterburner (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #22 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 7

Today's Song of the Day comes from Texan rock trio and Duck Dynasty fashion inspiration ZZ Top, whose synth-heavy 1985 album Afterburner had already churned out a top-10 hit with "Sleeping Bag" and a top-40 followup in "Stages". For the third single to hit pop radio, the guys shifted down a peg for as much as a ballad as you're ever gonna get from them, "Rough Boy". Written by the band and produced by long-time collaborator Bill Ham, the track is actually more traditional in instrumentation than the rest of the album, focusing on the guitar solo in the middle. The almost soft-porn music video extended the "Eliminator car" theme with a much much bigger special effects budget.

"Rough Boy" became the third top-40 hit from Afterburner in May of 1986, while also climbing to #5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the song was a top-40 hit in France, Ireland and England, the latter where it was the biggest hit from the record at #23.

Since then the song's aged pretty well, as the synthesizers are in the background (though that was one of my plusses for the album).

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Here's the band on CMT's Crossroads show with Brooks & Dunn with the song...

Up tomorrow: a British soft-jazz/pop group doesn't like repeats.