Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy

Rodgers wrote it from a guitar synthesizer riff he had come up with, and it was the first single from Desolation Angels. It peaked at 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979 and ended the year at 54. It was not their highest-charting single in America, but it is their best selling, certified Gold. Rodgers's maxim is that rock and roll is escapism, and he likens the band to jesters. He told Creem in 1979: "People want to go and see groups to get away from all that." The band had taken two years off after a tiring 1977 tour before the album.

Wardlaw called it "probably one of the best songs ever written about what it's like living life as a star in the music business". Classic Rock ranked it ninth among the band's ten best songs in 2016, praising Ralphs's "curt, sharp" solo. The Struts covered it for the 2025 tribute album, and a 2015 compilation took its title.