Highway to Hell

Angus Young, Malcolm Young and Bon Scott wrote it, with Angus credited for the guitar riff. It opens the 1979 album and was released as a single on the same day, 27 July 1979. It is in the key of A major. Malcolm recalled that there were hundreds of riffs going around every day, and this one stuck out. The title came from the experience of touring. Angus told Guitar World that all they had done was describe what it was like to be on the road for four years, and that an AC/DC tour really was a highway to hell.

The guitar and drum intro was first demoed with Angus on guitar and Malcolm on drums, and an engineer took the only cassette home, where his young son unraveled it. Scott put the tape back together. Mutt Lange produced the recording, and at the session he sat beside Angus and pointed out the notes of the solo. The song reached number 30 on the German singles chart, where it spent 45 weeks. In December 2013 a Facebook campaign took it to number four on the UK Christmas singles chart, the band's first UK top 10 single.

Michael Hann of The Guardian ranked it number seven on his list of the band's 40 greatest songs in 2020. It was played when the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, with Steven Tyler singing. Its live versions appear on AC/DC Live (1992), Let There Be Rock: The Movie and Live at River Plate. Of the 2,183 logged setlists that list songs, 1,472 include it, the earliest being a show at Cleveland Music Hall on 20 May 1979.