This 1978 Disco Song Started as a “Protest” Song and Turned Into Chic’s First No. 1 Hit

With hits like “Good Times” and “Le Freak”, the 70s disco band Chic has become a staple for birthday parties, nights out on the town, and any event that could be considered worthy of a celebration. When it comes to their biggest hit, though, the origins aren’t rooted in celebration so much as frustration.

Chic was founded by musicians Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards in 1972. The group started to have a moment with songs from their debut album Chic a few years later. This opened special doors for them.

One of those was a New Year’s Eve interview with Grace Jones at Studio 54, a nightclub in New York. However, as Rodgers revealed in an interview with SOS, the group’s name wasn’t left at the door of the club. Therefore, they weren’t let in. Ultimately, they decided to go back to Rodgers’ place and jam out instead.

“We were so pissed off at what had happened,” he explained. “I mean, it was Studio 54, it was New Year’s Eve, it was Grace Jones, and we were wearing the most expensive outfits that we had — back then, in the late ’70s, our suits must have cost us a couple of thousand bucks each, and our really fancy shoes had got soaked trudging through the snow.”

Their feelings about that night led to the creation of one of their biggest hits, “Le Freak”, which started with a very different hook and a different message.

From Protest Song To Dance Celebration

If you’ve ever heard “Le Freak”, you’re definitely familiar with the catchy riff that plays throughout the song. Originally, that riff was going to be “F**k Off!” instead of “Freak Out!”

“So ‘F**k Off’ was a protest song, and we actually thought it was pretty good — ‘Aaaaahh, f**k off!’ It had a vibe,” Rodgers shared. “I was thinking, ‘This could be the anthem of everybody who gets cut off on the street by a cab driver or any kids who want to say this to their parents.’ You know, ‘Hey, I wasn’t saying it, man! I was just playing the record.’”

Converting the song’s lick to “Freak Out!” took a separate lightbulb moment.

“First, we changed it from ‘f**k off’ to ‘freak off’, and that was pretty hideous,” he continued. “We were singing it and just stumbling over ‘freak off’, because it was so lame by comparison. Then, all of a sudden it just hit me. For one second the light bulb went on, and I sang ‘Aaaaahh, freak out!’”

It seems like Chic made a good decision to tweak the song. After all, it did end up being their first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1, and their biggest song to date. However, as Rodgers shared, “Freak Out!” would not have been possible without the first draft that was “F***k Off!”

“In fact, had we not come up with ‘f*ck off’ we would never have written ‘Freak Out’ and some other song would have been our big hit record,” he said.

Photo by: Chris McKay/Getty Images