Starship – We Built This City

Official music video remastered for Starship – “We Built This City” from the 1985 album ‘Knee Deep in the Hoopla’.

“We Built This City” – Single by Starship from the album Knee Deep in the Hoopla
B-side: “Private Room” (Instrumental)
Released: August 26, 1985
Songwriters: Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert and Peter Wolf
Producers: Peter Wolf and Jeremy Smith
Charted: No.12 in UK and No.1 in US

The song peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Outside the United States, “We Built This City” topped the charts in Australia and Canada, peaked inside the Top 10 of the charts in Germany, the Republic of Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland, the Top 20 on the charts in Belgium, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and the Top 30 of the charts in Austria and the Netherlands.

The song was engineered by producer Bill Bottrell, written by Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, Dennis Lambert and Peter Wolf and arranged by Bottrell and Jasun Martz with shared lead vocals by Mickey Thomas and Grace Slick.

The disc jockey interlude was not part of the original demo. In that spot, the song’s co-writer Martin Page had put a police report broadcasting news of a riot in Los Angeles – something that came on when he turned on the radio looking for something to fill that part of the song.

The police report made the song far more ominous and stuck to the original vision as written by Bernie Taupin. Starship’s producers replaced this part with a sunny announcer taking about “another gorgeous sunny Saturday” and delivering standard DJ patter (“the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps!”), changing the complexion of the song.

The DJ on the song is Les Garland, who was an executive at MTV at the time – a good guy to know if you want your video played. Garland not only put the video in hot rotation on MTV, he gave Grace Slick and Paul Kantner’s daughter China Kantner a gig on the network, making her the youngest VJ they ever had. Slick and Kantner were early members of Jefferson Starship, and Slick was still with the band when they recorded this song.

Lyrics:
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

Say you don’t know me
Or recognize my face
Say you don’t care who goes
To that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla
Sinking in your fight
Too many runaways
Eating up the night

Marconi plays the mamba
Listen to the radio, don’t you remember?
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

Someone always playing
Corporation games
Who cares they’re always changing
Corporation names
We just want to dance here
Someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible
Write us off the page

Marconi plays the mamba
Listen to the radio, don’t you remember?
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

It’s just another Sunday
In a tired old street
Police have got the chokehold, oh
And we just lost the beat
Who counts the money
Underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball
Into our guitars
Don’t tell us you need us
‘Cause we’re the ship of fools
Looking for America
Coming through your schools

I’m looking out over that Golden Gate bridge
On another gorgeous sunny Saturday
And I’m seeing that bumper to bumper traffic
Don’t you remember? (‘Member, ‘member)
It’s your favorite radio station
In your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks
The city that never sleeps

Marconi plays the mamba
Listen to the radio, don’t you remember?
We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

We built this city
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

Built this city (Oo-ho)
We built this city on rock and roll
Built this city
We built this city on rock and roll

We built, we built this city, yeah
(Built this city) We built, we built this city
We built, we built this city, yeah
(Built this city) We built, we built this city
We built, we built this city, yeah
(Built this city) We built, we built this city
We built, we built this city, yeah
(Built this city) We built, we built this city
We built, we built this city, yeah