Released July 1985 Genre Heavy metal | Format 7", 12" Length 4:32 | |
B-side We Rock (live)
The Last In Line (live) Recorded August 25, 1984 (live recordings)
Philadelphia, USA
Rumbo Studios, Los Angeles, California, USA | ||
"Rock 'N' Roll Children" is the sixth single released by heavy metal band Dio, appearing on their 1985 LP, Sacred Heart. It reached number 26 on the Billboard Top Album Tracks chart.
Rock 'n' Roll fairy tale
Rock 'N' Roll Children is a song exemplary for Dio’s style of blending the theme of rock ‘n’ roll with fantasy elements. It is about boy and a girl, meant for each other and at the same time hostile opposites, ending up alone in the dark. The song seems to be closely connected to the song Sacred Heart of the same album, which is about a quest imposed by a wizard to find the sacred heart bleeding in the night; in Rock 'N' Roll Children the fall in the darkness of the couple is expressed as the breaking of a heart.
Some of the elements in the lyrics of the song Sacred Heart are used in the music video of Rock 'N' Roll Children. In this video, two kids get in trouble and end up in antique store named Curios. The store belongs to the wizard played by Ronnie James Dio, who seems to have some secret involvement in the matter of their trouble. They hide in a closet and disappear in the nightmare world of the wizard, separate of each other. This dark world of the wizard reflects ordinary society, a hostile world for children of rock 'n' roll, because they don’t want to be enslaved by its rules and authority figures. In the end they find each other and the wizard's game is over.