I'm Bad I'm Nationwide ZZ Top

Degüello is the sixth studio album by the American rock band ZZ Top, released in November 1979. It was the first ZZ Top release on Warner Bros. Records and eventually went platinum. It was produced by Bill Ham, recorded and mixed by Terry Manning, and mastered by Bob Ludwig.

Returning from a two-year hiatus, the band began to showcase the influence they have collected during the time away; Gibbons' time in Europe introduced him to punk music, the influences of which seeped into the creation of the album. The band also consciously tried experimenting with technology: Gibbons saw an episode of The Phil Donahue Show where a person's identity was protected using silhouette and a pitch shifter; liking the sound, he asked engineer Manning to call the show and find out what the effects unit was. Manning eventually convinced a reluctant show producer to reveal it, and the effect was used for both vocals and guitars on songs like "Manic Mechanic".

The album marked the first time that ZZ Top featured cover versions on a studio album: "I Thank You" by Isaac Hayes/David Porter and "Dust My Broom", credited on early editions to Elmore James but subsequently credited to Robert Johnson who recorded it in 1936. Elmore James had adapted and popularized the song in 1951.

"Degüello" means "decapitation" (literally, a slashing of the throat) or, idiomatically, when something is said to be done "a degüello", it means "no quarter" in Spanish (as in, "no surrender to be given or accepted—a fight to the death"). It was also the title of a Moorish-origin bugle call used by the Mexican Army at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

The song "I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide" was inspired by Texas bluesman Joey Long. As Billy Gibbons tells it, Long always had a new Cadillac. However, since he didn’t have a drivers license, his beautiful wife Barbarella used to drive him to gigs. Long died in 1995. The song is also noteworthy as the only tune other than Somebody Else Been Shaking Your Tree where Gibbons plays pedal steel guitar.

Gibbons also plays “a multi-stringed mandolin-like instrument from Parral, Mexico” that Long gave him. “If you listen closely, you can hear close-miked mandolin-sounding rhythm accompaniment,” he told Guitar World. “The lead track was played on a custom-made, half-sized, real short-scaled guitar tuned to G. It was actually standard tuning cranked up three steps, which remained quite playable thanks to the guitar’s short scale. The song’s tail end alternates between three distinct effects created by two pedals: an Echoplex doubler and a Maestro octave box alternating every third bar between having the octave up and the octave down.”

Released November 1979
Recorded April–August 1979
Side 1 Song 3
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide

Well, I was rolling down the road
In some cold blue steel
I had a blues man on the back
And a beautician at the wheel
We going downtown
In the middle of the night
We laughing and I'm joking
And we feeling alright

Oh I'm bad, I'm nationwide
Yes I'm bad, I'm nationwide

Easing down the highway
In a new Cadillac
I had a fine fox in front
I had three more in the back
They sporting short dresses
Wearing spike-heel shoes
They smoking Lucky Strikes
And wearing nylons too

Cause we bad, we're nationwide
Yeah we bad, we're nationwide

Well, I was moving down the road
In my V-8 Ford
I had a shine on my boots
I had my sideburns lowered
With my New York brim
And my gold tooth displayed
Nobody give me trouble
Cause they know I got it made

I'm bad, I'm nationwide
Well, I'm bad, bad, bad
Bad, bad, I'm nationwide, yeah, yeah