Legendary rock songwriters have taken inspiration from a whole host of things, relationships, traveling – even dreams. But, for some reason, casino culture has had an especially significant impact on the great, leading to some of our favorite songs.
This isn’t really surprising, though. Casino games have always entertained and intrigued audiences, from traditional card games to the live roulette casinos that you can play online today. Options have always been available in some form or another, due to the high demand that continues to this day. This is crystal clear from the number of choices that are so vast that there are now specialist aggregator sites to help us sift through what’s out there. Could this partly be down to the amazing music the industry has inspired? Let’s take a look at some of the very best casino-inspired songs.
Ace of Spades, Motorhead
Motorhead is one of the English rock scene’s biggest names that went on to international acclaim. The song Ace of Spades can be found on the album of the same name and was released back in October 1980. Featuring metaphors related to gambling, the singer talks about liking to gamble. While he doesn’t specify a game in particular, it is clear he is talking about some kind of card game. This is apparently due to Lemmy’s preference for slot games but realizing that it was impossible to make a similar song about spinning fruit. The song was a huge success but didn’t manage to reach number one in the charts in the UK or US. It has, however, been ranked as one of the best rock songs of all time by VH1, Q, Loudwire, and NME.
Casino Boogie, The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are perhaps one of the most influential and well-known rock bands of all time. Their song Casino Boogie was released in 1972 but is maybe not one of their best-known songs. It comes off the Exile on Main Street album, which was written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. The story behind how the song was written is fascinating, as Jagger just wrote a lot of random phrases on pieces of paper and mixed them up. He then picked them out randomly and assembled the song, in that order, based on the phrases he pulled. Another interesting fact about the song is that the opening riff is not played again at any point throughout the song, making a break from traditional song structuring.
The Angel and the Gambler, Iron Maiden
One of the darker songs on our list, The Angel and the Gambler, was released by Iron Maiden in 1998 on the album Virtual XI. The famous cover features a macabre, almost skull-like face with various dice strewn around. Almost ten minutes long, its video was quite unique at the time as it was almost entirely computer-generated. The song had quite a good reception but failed to top any charts. However, Iron Maiden, originally hailing from the UK, is known as one of the best and most iconic heavy metal bands of all time, having recorded 41 albums since 1975. Their last album was released in 2021 and reached number one in several countries, demonstrating their music is still influential with the crowd of today.
There are many examples of rock and pop music that have been heavily influenced and inspired by the world of gambling, be it online or offline. With both having huge followings and a culture attached to them, it is not surprising they have made these many cross-overs, with more likely to continue!
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