AC/DC rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young would have turned 67 years old today (January 6th). When Bon Scott died the band wanted a to do a tribute but many disagreed with what they came up with. The song and album was to be called “Back in Black” but guitarist Angus Young says they had to stick to their guns when it came to using “Back in Black” as a title for a song — and an album — that saluted their late singer Bon Scott.
“That was our way of saluting Bon’s thing. We didn’t want to drudge out a tragedy, so we figured that was the best tribute we could do. So we made it black as the mark of respect when somebody passes away. That was the idea of it. There was a lot of people, actually, at the time, when we first said what we wanted, y’know, they were all saying, ‘You can’t do that. People don’t like that. Black, it’s negative thing.’ But for us it meant something and that’s what we stuck by.
