Video hit Scorpions & Johannes Strate

Scorpions with Johannes Strate - Rock You Like a Hurricane (unplugged)

"Rock You Like a Hurricane" is a song by the German heavy metal band Scorpions.

The song was released as the second track of their 1984 album Love at First Sting.

Ultimate Classic Rock is pleased to present the record video of a dramatically re-imagined version of one of the Scorpions‘ most well-known classics, ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane,’ taken from their ‘MTV Unplugged’ performance.

When the German legends announced their intentions to say farewell, they quickly found that there were quite a few fans (and many new ones) who weren’t ready to say goodbye. Singer Klaus Meine told us recently, “It’s playing in front of a whole new rock audience and so many new Scorpions fans that are seeing us on this tour for the very first time. I guess it’s because of YouTube — wherever we play in the world, you can see parts of the show on YouTube and this is what brings us a whole new audience into the concerts.”

As it turns out, the group wasn’t prepared to hang things up either.

The concert was filmed in September 2013 over two nights in Athens, Greece and as guitarist Rudolf Schenker told Ultimate Classic Rock, it was an event that was a long time coming.

“We had the offer already in the late-‘80s to do ‘MTV Unplugged,’” he said. “But we were so busy traveling around the world and playing everywhere [that] we had to say no. Which was great, because now we had the possibility after our worldwide success [to do it right], working things out with the right team, Martin [Hansen] and Mikael [Nord Andersson], the two producers from Sweden.”

The Lycabettus Theater in Athens provided a perfect setting for the show. “It’s on the highest mountain in Greece,” Schenker shared. “We played there [about] 10 years ago and we know just how great the feeling is. It’s an unbelievable atmosphere there.”

Once they had determined the setting for the concert, there were still quite a few things to work out, Schenker reveals. “We had actually 40 different songs in our pipeline when we were working on different arrangements. Since we already did an acoustic album in 2001 in Lisboa, we said to our record company, ‘Okay, we’re doing the ‘MTV Unplugged,’ but without ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane,’ ‘Wind Of Change’ and ‘Still Loving You,’ which we did already on ‘Acoustica ‘in 2001.”

But their record company, naturally, was not too happy with the idea of leaving off their biggest hits, so the band decided to drastically re-work ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane,’ and found themselves with several options. “We had four different arrangements in our pipeline for that,” said Schenker. “But in the end, this was the winner and the good thing about it is that the people don’t know in the beginning which song it is! That makes the whole thing full of tension, Because the people are going ‘What’s this? I never heard that!’ Same thing with ‘Blackout’ and ‘Hit Between The Eyes,’ they are old songs where you don’t know when the guitar is starting [what song it is].”

So was it fun? We had to ask Schenker how much of a challenge it was for him to unplug as a guitarist and he had some colorful thoughts on the subject.

“I’m a complete rock guitar bastard,” he says. “You know, I love the rock guitar like crazy. That’s because the Scorpions as a band played eighty percent rock stuff on the albums and twenty percent ballads. It was already a little bit close to the acoustic guitars [we used] composing ‘Holiday’ or ‘When The Smoke Is Going Down’ and stuff like that. In this case, one of the producers, Mikael Nord Andersson, is a very good acoustic guitar player.”

“To work with him was a lot of fun. He was showing us a lot of tricks with open tuning and he was showing us how ‘Kashmir’ and some other stuff from Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Page was done. It sounded very complicated, but in the end, if you have the right tuning, it sounds very easy. [Laughs] So in this case, it was a lot of fun to really go into the acoustic guitar in a different way — to see the other side of the acoustic guitar.”

The lyrics:

It's early morning

The sun comes out

Last night was shaking

And pretty loud

My cat is purring

And scratches my skin

So what is wrong

With another sin

The bitch is hungry

She needs to tell

So give her inches

And feed her well

More days to come

New places to go

I've got to leave

It's time for a show

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane

My body is burning

It starts to shout

Desire is coming

It breaks out loud

Lust is in cages

Till storm breaks loose

Just have to make it

With someone I choose

The night is calling

I have to go

The wolf is hungry

He runs the show

He's licking his lips

He's ready to win

On the hunt tonight

For love at first sting

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane

Here I am, rock you like a hurricane