1976 · Behind the Songs
The phone number that wouldn’t stop ringing.
Few choruses in rock are as gleefully crooked as this one. Bon Scott, playing the role of a cartoon gangster, offers his services — “dirty deeds, done dirt cheap” — and even gives out the phone number: 36-24-36. The title track of AC/DC’s 1976 Australian album was pure Bon-era mischief, all swagger and menace delivered with a wink.
The joke had consequences. Once the song traveled the world, real subscribers whose numbers resembled the one in the lyric were swamped with prank calls from fans — a problem so persistent that some reportedly had to change their numbers. It’s the kind of trouble only a hook that good could cause.
The album itself had a strange path: released in Australia in 1976, it was held back from American release until 1981, after Back in Black made the band superstars — at which point it finally found the audience it deserved.
“Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” remains the definitive Bon Scott performance: dangerous, funny, and impossible not to sing along to.