The meaning behind Billy Squier’s 1981 hard rock hit “The Stroke” is easily mistaken as a sexual one. And for good reason. The pulsating beat, shrieking vocals, and insistent chants of stroke, stroke, stroke… give life to a hot-blooded song that sounds far too risqué for its actual PG meaning.
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The ear-worming tune is really a wise one, offering a learned life lesson beneath its seemingly sexual innuendos.
Behind the Song
Appearing on Squier’s sophomore album Don’t Say No, “The Stroke” sends a message, warning of something the young musician was forced to learn early on. The funk-tinged tune demands a closer listen and with it, a cautionary tale is unveiled.
“The Stroke” was inspired by the music industry, Squier’s experiences with labels, executives, and the overall machine that so readily uses, manipulates, and exploits artists. The song became a way for him to call out those evils while also offering up one of rock’s most memorable songs.
Now everybody, the song begins with a cry, Have you heard / If you’re in the game / Then the stroke’s the word. Squier advises that if you want to be in this business, you’ve got to learn how to play its dirty game, one that involves letting the industry “stroke” you, or rather turn you into one of their toys. The rest of the tune plays like a step-by-step, tongue-in-cheek survival guide, recommending Better listen now / Said it ain’t no joke / Let your conscience fail ya’ / Just do the stroke and Don’t ya’ take no chances / Keep your eye on top / Do your fancy dances / You can’t stop.
It was never intended for “The Stroke” to sound as sexual as it initially does. “I take songwriting very seriously and I wouldn’t want anything I do to be construed as frivolous or mundane,” the rocker once explained to the Baltimore Sun.
With lines like Put your right hand out / Give a firm handshake, First, you try to bed me / You make my backbone slide, and the chorus’ incessant Stroke me, stroke me, plenty of listeners over the years have gotten hip to a meaning very different from the song’s actual moral.
“Plenty of people saw sexual connotations in [‘The Stroke’] but to me, it was about what goes on in the business world,” Squier added, saying it doesn’t bother him too much. “I mean, I’m happy if people get something sexual out of it, but that was not its original intent or purpose.”
Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
