I’m gonna stick with 1984 for the song this week. I’ve long since talked about this album, which was a given since it’s my favorite Judas Priest record. Today I’ll have a look at the album’s lead single.

Freewheel Burning was released in January 1984 as the first single from Defenders Of The Faith. Oddly, the single was apparently released the same day as the album, at least from the sources I can gather. The single held a few very modest chart positions though the album as a whole was quite successful.

This song is 100% quintessential heavy metal. While Priest have always been a heavy metal band devoid of sub-genres like thrash, this song does easily fit the speed metal category. It is fast and furious, just as the first words of the song indicate. Fast And Furious was also the working title for the song before recording, just imagine the crossovers Priest could have had with the movie franchise.

Two stars of this show are the classic guitar tandem of Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. Not only is the song’s main riff a total barnburner, but the extended solo section of this song is absolute fire.

Also of note, as would be expected, is Rob Halford’s vocal performance. He is all over this one, shrieking through the verses while using a bit of his range in the bridge. He also delivers a rapid-fire performance a few minutes in that moves faster than rap, it’s a Halford machine gun. It’s certainly among his signature performances.

The theme with this one is simple – it’s about getting in your car and going fast. Not only fast, but as fast as possible. There’s nothing more to read into this one, just grab your vehicle of choice and put the pedal to the metal, high speed at all costs. Given the sorry state of US drivers these days, it’s like this song is used for driver’s ed.

Freewheel Burning has been a favorite song among Priest fans since 1984. Surprisingly, the song ranks a rather modest 20^th in terms of how many times it’s been played live. I would have expected more but that’s why I look these things up. But it is a favorite when it does get set time, and I was happy to hear it when I saw them in 2018.

One other fun little bit of trivia – on the vinyl single, there is an extra guitar intro that isn’t heard anywhere else. It’s a slow, atmospheric bit that takes up an extra 50 or so seconds. Sadly I can’t find a good video of it so if you want to check that out you’ll have to hunt down the single or watch some video of a dude playing it on his turntable.

That’s about all there is to it, it’s pretty quick and easy to run down this speedy beast of a song. It was yet another triumph for Judas Priest as they helped cement the foundation of heavy metal in the 1980’s and are still leading the charge 40 years later.