"You Shook Me All Night Long" is a song by Australian band AC/DC, from the album Back in Black.  It was AC/DC's first single with Brian Johnson as the lead singer, replacing Bon Scott who died of alcohol poisoning  in February 1980 after an evening of heavy drinking.  The coroner's report stated the cause as, "Acute Alcohol Poisoning and Death By Misadventure."

Reaching number 35 on the USA's Hot 100 pop singles chart in 1980, the single was re-released internationally in 1986, following the release of the album Who Made Who.

The pressure was on for Brian Johnson when he had joined AC/DC.

Guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young told their new singer that they had a song called “You Shook Me All Night Long” that needed lyrics.  Wanting to impress his new bandmates, Johnson wrote the lyrics to the band’s classic song that same night.

“I had to impress somebody,” said Johnson in a 2014 interview, joking that he wanted to repay the band for his plane ticket down to The Bahamas where they were starting to work on their sixth album, Back in Black.

Johnson already had the opening line, ‘She was a fast machine / She kept her motor clean.’ A car enthusiast, Johnson was exploring the similarities between women and cars.  In AC/DC language: they (women and cars) move fast, and it’s exciting to see all the different models. 

“That was the first thing that came to me head, but the boys had the title,” revealed Johnson of writing the first verse.  “Malcolm and Angus said, ‘Hey listen, we got this song,’ and if you listen to the chords, it just fell in anyway, so I can’t claim any credit on that.  The rest was just filler, the verses, and it all worked out smashing.”

The song has become a staple of AC/DC concerts and is rarely excluded from the setlist.

Four live versions of the song were officially released.  The first one appeared on the 1986 maxi-single "You Shook Me All Night Long"; the second one was included on the band's album Live; the third version is on the soundtrack to the Howard Stern movie Private Parts, and also appears on the AC/DC box set Backtracks; and the fourth one is on the band's live album, Live at River Plate.

Various Sources