"ROckWrok"
Single by Ultravox!
from the album Ha!-Ha!-Ha!
A-side"ROckWrok"
B-side"Hiroshima Mon Amour" (alternate version)
Released7 October 1977
Recorded1977
Genre
Length3:33
LabelIsland
Songwriter(s)John Foxx
Producer(s)Ultravox!
Ultravox! singles chronology
"Young Savage"
(1977)		 "ROckWrok"
(1977)		 "Quirks"
(1978)

"ROckWrok" is a single by the post-punk band Ultravox!, released on 7 October 1977 by Island Records.[1] It was the last British non-free single (the next, "Quirks", came free along initial copies of the album) released from the Ha! Ha! Ha! album and featuring Stevie Shears as guitarist. The next non-free single was Frozen Ones, released only in Germany shortly afterwards.[2]

"ROckWrok" features a punk sound derived from Warren Cann's drums and Stevie Shears' guitar alongside John Foxx's hard vocals. It was regularly performed live until Ultravox's U.S. and Canadian tour in 1979,[3] when Foxx decided to go solo. The song was performed live by Massive Attack on their 2019 tour. They had previously sampled "ROckWrok" for their 1998 song Inertia Creeps.[4]

The B-side is an early version or demo,[5] or alternate version of "Hiroshima Mon Amour" (named after the famous French movie), written by John Foxx and Billy Currie. It has a punkier sound than the album version of the song. A third version of the song was performed live on the Old Grey Whistle Test the next year, with Robin Simon replacing Shears as guitarist; it was quieter than the "ROckWrok" single version but maintained the rock style, also differing from the synthpop oriented version on Ha!-Ha!-Ha!.

This single, like all the Ha!-Ha!-Ha!-era releases, didn't perform well in the charts.

Track listing

7" version

  1. "ROckWrok" – 3:33
  2. "Hiroshima Mon Amour" – 4:54

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ metamatic.com - Discography: Singles - ROckwrok Archived 10 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ ULTRAVOX ROCKWROK singles
  3. ↑ ULTRAVOX - THE STORY Pt 4, WARREN CANN INTERVIEWED BY JONAS WÅRSTAD: Feb 1979 - First US tour starts
  4. ↑ Patrin, Nate (8 January 2017). "Massive Attack - Mezzanine". Pitchfork Media. Condé Nast. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  5. ↑ ULTRAVOX - THE STORY Pt 2, WARREN CANN INTERVIEWED BY JONAS WÅRSTAD: 14 Oct 1977 - Third single 'ROckwrok/Hiroshima mon amour (early version)'


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