“Shooting Star” (1975) – Bad Company

“Shooting Star” (1975) – Bad Company * Written by Paul Rodgers * Produced by Bad Company * LP: Straight Shooter * Label: Atlantic/Swan Song

Chuck Berry’s “Johnny” saga got a contemporary reboot with Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” which appeared at the heart of their Straight Shooter album. (It name checks “Love Me Do” and borrows the opening chord sequence for John(ny) Lennon’s “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away.”) The “shoot” motif reminds us of the rat-tat-tat-tat-tat of the “Johnny B. Goode” riff, an allusion to powerful weaponry, the likes used by short-lived but legendary figures such as Scarface, Stagger Lee, or Jimi “Machine Gun” Hendrix. Lyrically, Bad Company vocalist and “Shooting Star” songwriter Paul Rodgers didn’t overextend himself in the analysis department. When he sings “Johnny died one night” we assume that he burned out far too young and had far too much of the booze and downers by his head. But maybe the basic info is all listeners needed in the by-then familiar post-Hendrix/ Joplin/ Morrison understanding that in pop music, the rise is the fall (and then the fall can be the re-rise).

The dice on the cover beg for numerological interpretation, so here goes. The 11 is a (Johnny-esque) “natural” that wins in craps on a coming-out roll. What about the serial number 3917? Its digits add up to 20 (3+9+1+7), which boil down to 2 (2+0, same as 1+1). I’ll interpret this 2 as an acknowledgment of a  second iteration of the Johnny story. You can interpret it your own way, because that’s how numerology works.