Ace Of Spades The Game God Was Never On Your Side Motorhead

Ace Of Spades Album: Ace of Spades (1980)
The Game Album: Hammered (2002)
God Was Never On Your Side Album: Kiss Of Death (2006)
by Motörhead

Ace Of Spades is Motörhead's most famous song; and everyone has done a lame Mad Max Tribute Video to it... Here's mine!!!

Lemmy recalled writing Ace Of Spades in an interview with Mojo magazine February 2011: "'Ace of Spades' is unbeatable, apparently, but I never knew it was such a good song. Writing it was just a word-exercise on gambling, all the clichés. I'm glad we got famous for that rather than for some turkey, but I sang 'the eight of spades' for two years and nobody noticed."
The "Ace Of Spades" is the dead man's hand, which was Wild Bill Hickok's hand as he was shot dead during a game of poker in 1876. The hand consists of aces and eights, including the ace of spades.

After playing Ace Of Spades for years, Lemmy admitted he was sick of the song, but said he kept it in the setlist because, "If I went to a Little Richard concert, I'd expect to hear Long Tall Sally."

Motörhead plays "Ace Of Spades" in the 1984 episode of the British TV series The Young Ones called "Bambi." It's part of a scene where the stars of the show head to the train station.

Ace Of Spades is used in the video game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, and also appears in the movie Superbad. >>
Lemmy had a tattoo of the ace of spades on his left forearm. After the Motörhead frontman died on December 28, 2015, Dave Grohl got an ace of spades tattoo on his wrist.

He may have embellished the tale a bit for the sake of a story, but Lemmy claimed he wrote this song in the back of a transit van traveling at 90 mph.

Lemmy recorded a new down-tempo blues version with bandmates Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee in 2010 for a Kronenbourg 1664 commercial. This updated more leisurely rendition, which sees Lemmy playing harmonica, emphasises the brand's assertion that this is a beer that should be "enjoyed slowly."

It was the first time Lemmy had taken the song back into the studio since it was originally released 30 years previously and director Matt Doman, who shot the ad for Kronenbourg, said it was a challenge working with the rock icon. "But it's really because he's very protective of the track," he explained. "Spending a day with him in the recording studio was a roller coaster."

Ace Of Spades is one of the most commonly covered songs among Punk and Hardcore bands. Elvis Suissa of Three Bad Jacks told us why: "It's one of the greatest and most aggressive rock and roll songs I've ever heard in my life. Makes me just want to f--king scream at the top of my lungs. Every time I hear it my blood just pumps and I just want to explode. It's one of the most amazing things I've ever heard in my life."

The Three Bad Jacks version appears on their 2005 album Crazy in the Head.
This was produced by Vic Maile, who also worked with Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton. Motorhead were strangely receptive to some of Maile's more left-field production ideas such as adding woodblock to this song. "He didn't drink, he didn't smoke, and he was very delicate because he was diabetic," guitarist Eddie Clarke recalled to Uncut. "He had to have his Ryvita (a rye-based crispbread) at six o'clock. We couldn't get heavy with him, couldn't f--king shake him, you know what I mean? He might die! So we had to listen to him."

"If it was anyone else, we'd have told him to go and f--k off and die or tied 'em to the car and run around the car park with them," Clarke added regarding the wood block. "But because it was Vic we said, 'Oh, all right Vic...' So we're there with these blocks of wood banging them together. He put loads of reverb on and that's the sound you hear - 'dang dang dang dang dang dang CLACK.' We didn't want to upset him in case we killed him."

Sadly Maile did pass away at the age of 45 from cancer on July 11, 1989.

The "Desert Scene" Ace of Spades album cover was actually shot in a sandpit near Barnet, 10 miles northeast of London.
A campaign to send this song back into the UK Top 40 following the death of Lemmy on December 28, 2015 saw the track re-enter the singles chart at #13. This was two places higher than its original position of #15.

In tribute to Lemmy, who died about six weeks earlier, The Hollywood Vampires (led by Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp and Joe Perry) performed Ace Of Spades at the Grammy Awards in 2016. Dave Grohl introduced the act and said, "I have an ace of spades tattoo but the truth is, Lemmy and Motörhead left their mark on me a long time ago, just as they did for everybody who has ever loved rock and roll. As Lemmy taught us in the song 'Ace of Spades,' the pleasure is to play."

Want to hear "Ace Of Spades" played on church bells? Check out guitarist Jitse Zonneveld and keyboardist/bell-ringer Frank Steijns' performance of the song during the local Toren festival held in the Dutch town of Weert on July 17, 2021.

"The Game" is a song produced originally by Jim Johnston, the in-house producer of many of the WWE wrestling organization's biggest entrance themes. It was taken on by Motorhead and recorded as a bonus track for Hammered to become WWE superstar Triple H's new entrance theme, and as such has became his signature song (alongside another Motorhead track, "King of Kings"), having been used from 2001 onwards.

Triple H (real name Paul Levesque) is a big fan of the band and is good friends with lead singer Lemmy Kilmister; on the album he also provides backing vocals on the track "Serial Killer."

Triple H spoke more about the genesis of his most distinctive walk-on music in a 2011 interview with MTV Newsroom. "Years ago I was making a transition to becoming this bad guy (known in wrestling as the 'heel' character), and they wanted me to change my music," he said. "We had our music guy Jim Johnston working on it, and it wasn't the sound I wanted. I kept saying, 'I want it more raw, more gritty,' and I kept saying, 'Think Motörhead, think Motörhead.' So finally Jim was like, 'Why don't we just get Motörhead to do it?' They were into it, and they did the song for me, and they came to one of the shows, and Lem and I just hit it off. They've played me to the ring a few times."

Lemmy provides what has been called lyrical doom-mongering for this swipe at organized religion with "God Was Never On Your Side". Although Richard Dawkins will doubtless approve - if he has heard it - Lemmy was an agnostic rather than an atheist. His antipathy to religion in this song is intensely personal, and was expounded by him in "Poison" from the 1979 Bomber album.

In a 2006 interview with Andred Latham, Lemmy said of "God Was Never On Your Side" it was not about himself, he was just sending out a message.

The theme is one that will be familiar to historians; many of the wars in history up to the present day have seen leaders and their religious allies claiming God is on "our" side, with the inference that the Devil is aiding the enemy.

Running to 4 minutes 20 seconds on the 2006 Kiss Of Death album, band members Phil Campbell and Mikki Dee also contributed to the music; C.C. Deville of Poison guested on lead guitar.