‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ is a song by Australian hard rock band AC/DC. It is the eighth and final track on the band's fourth Australian album, Let There Be Rock, released in Australia in March 1977, and was written by Angus Young, Malcolm Young, and Bon Scott. It is also the eighth and final track on the international version of the album, released in June the same year. It was released as a single in a few countries in 1977, backed by ‘Dog Eat Dog’. The song is about a fuller-figured Tasmanian woman, Rosie, with whom the singer (Bon Scott) had a one-night stand at the Freeway Gardens Motel in North Melbourne. In addition to pointing out the woman's size, the singer finds her to be one of the most talented lovers he has ever experienced.
The song's first verse reveals Rosie's substantial physical measurements (42"-39"-56"), and that she weighs nineteen stone, or 266 pounds (121 kg). On the Live from the Atlantic Studios disc, however, Scott describes the titular woman as "... a Tasmanian devil ... weighs 305 pounds (138 kg)...," a measurement that differs from the "nineteen stone" lyric.
In 1998, speaking to Vox magazine, Angus Young remembered: “We'd been in Tasmania and after the show [Bon Scott] said he was going to check out a few clubs. He said he'd got about 100 yards down the street when he heard this yell: 'Hey! Bon!' He looked around and saw this leg and thought: 'Oh well!' From what he said, there was this Rosie woman and a friend of hers. They were plying him with drinks and Rosie said to him: 'This month I've slept with 28 famous people,' and Bon went: 'Oh yeah?!' Anyway, in the morning he said he woke up pinned against the wall, he said he opened one eye and saw her lean over to her friend and whisper: '29!' There's very few people who'll go out and write a song about a big fat lady, but Bon said it was worthy.”
In 2021, the woman the song was written about was identified by British-Australian AC/DC biographer Jesse Fink as Rosemaree (or stylized as Rose-Maree) Garcia, an Australian sex worker who saw Scott for some time before he went to England. Rosie was indeed born in Launceston, Tasmania, lived in St Kilda and died in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran in 1979, aged 22.
When the song is performed live, the crowd will usually shout "Angus!" in between each of the opening riffs. This has its origins in the version heard on If You Want Blood You've Got It. The latest live performances of "Whole Lotta Rosie" were accompanied by a giant, inflatable "Rosie" as seen on the Live at Donington video. The inflatable Rosie was first used on the 1990/91 "The Razors Edge" tour. In March 2005, Q magazine placed the live version from If You Want Blood ... at number 16 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.
Label – Atlantic
Songwriters – Angus Young, Bon Scott, Malcolm Young
Producers – Harry Vanda, George Young
SONG LYRICS
[Intro]Wan' tell you a story
'Bout a woman I know
Ah, come to loving
She steals the show
She ain't exactly pretty
Ain't exactly small
Forty-two, thirty-nine, fifty-six
You could say she's got it all
[Verse 1]
Never had a woman
Never had a woman like you
Doin' all the things
Doin' all the things you do
Ain't no fairy story
Ain't no skin and bones
But you give it all you got
Weighing in at nineteen stone
[Chorus]
You're a whole lotta woman
A whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
And you're a whole lotta woman
[Verse 2]
Oh, honey, you can do it
Do it to me all night long
Only one that turn me
Only one that turn me on
All through the night time
And right around the clock
Woo, to my surprise, Rosie never stopped
[Chorus]
She was a whole lotta woman
Whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
A whole lotta woman
[Solo]
[Chorus]
Oh, you're a whole lotta woman
Whole lotta woman
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta Rosie
You're a whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta woman-man-man-man-man
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Whole lotta Rosie
Whole lotta woman
Whole lotta woman