If in 1965 when the Scorpions formed, you told them that one day they’d be celebrating their 50th anniversary with a lyric video, they’d be like “what’s a video?” Yet here we are, and the band just released a new song, “We Built This House,” in support of their forthcoming 18th album, Return to Forever. Speaking to Rolling Stone about the meaning behind the song, the band’s 66 year-old vocalist Rudolf Schenker says “We Built This House” has a double meaning:
“We say in the song, ‘We built this house on the rock,’ and that’s the truth.” But, Schenker adds, the “rock” is more than just rock & roll: “It’s also friendship. When I started the band 50 years ago, I knew four or five people who were playing rock music together and touring the world and making friends everywhere. I said, ‘I want to do the same thing.’ I wanted to have people around me who were great musicians, but also people I could build a friendship with. So I think in this case, the ‘rock’ is rock & roll, and the rock tour. But it is also the friendship and the love. So you have a double meaning.”
The song sounds pretty much like a band that’s got a formula and is sticking to it. There are guitar harmonies and Meine’s signature voice, but it’s a pretty poppy song. It sounds like it could get a country makeover and not suffer from it. Elsewhere on the album, the band state that they’re using riffs that they’ve been holding on to since the ’80s, with new versions of demos from Blackout and Love at First Sting. “We Built This House,” however, is all new.
