It gave a name to one of the greatest and loudest bands on earth, defined the man who wrote it as the epitome of the sex and drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyle, and had a profound influence on Metallica, Venom and Napalm Death among countless others. But when Ian ‘Lemmy’ Kilmister wrote Motorhead 40 years ago it was, he says, “just another song”. Nobody, least of all Lemmy himself, could have foreseen that it would become arguably the most important song he would ever write.
In 1974, Lemmy was 28 years old and the bassist in space-rock gurus Hawkwind. He’d been in the band three years, and had sung lead vocal on their biggest hit, Silver Machine, which had reached No.3 on the UK chart in June 1972. But as a songwriter he was feeling frustrated.
