AC/DC - Powerage (1978)

Our starcross'd lovers met in 1971 when he stepped down from a stage in Adelaide and her observation of 'That's a well packed lunch' was greeted with the response: 'Yes, two hard-boiled eggs and a sausage.' Such backstage banter usually leads to a quick tourbus bunk-up, followed by a slightly awkward goodbye, but Bon Scott and Irene Thornton were married less than a year later.

A disastrous stint in England, while Bon failed to get his hippy prog band Fraternity off the ground, took the gloss of their nuptuals, though, and the couple split in 1974. The offer of replacing AC/DC's original singer Dave Evans soon followed in September, as the band realised their early glam rock incarnation wasn't really working out.

With Bon onboard, AC/DC begin their slow climb towards becoming the fifth-biggest-selling band in US history - and the singer quickly gained a reputation as a wild man, always to be found with a drink in one hand and a dame in the other.

Despite his hellraising public image, Bon continued to write lovelorn letters to Irene in Australia. In one he pretends to write as a friend of his, saying: "There is no one in the whole wide world he loves more. Bon is very lonely and he misses his beautiful young spouse with all his heart."

This strange state of affairs continues until 1978, when Irene declares that she wants a divorce. Bon agrees - and the experience inspires the lyrics to his band's finest 40 minutes.

Stirred into the usual Bon mots about booze, sex and rock'n'roll, this makes for a revealing look of a life spent forever on the road - moments of abandon and ecstasy mixed with loneliness, boredom and frustration.

Musically, Powerage is glorious runaway train of supercharged rock'n'roll boogie, the Young brothers churning out a seemingly tireless sturm und drang stream of classic riffage. Angus provides all manner of squealing solos to drive the songs to ever greater peaks of delirium, while Bon's leather-lunged caterwaul charges in over the top. The effect is as electrifying as Angus on the front cover - you can't help feeling a wave of energy off the vinyl.

But listen to the lyrics and it starts to sound like the walls are closing in - Rock'n'Roll Damnation is half a celebration of Bon's life of excess and half a rueful acknowledgement of what it's going to cost him (he started receiving treatment for liver damage a year later at the age of 32, so his body was probably already starting to rebel against the punishment).

Riff Raff sides with the unloved Common Joe while Sin City is a shopping listing of Bon's favourite indulgences ('Lamborginis, caviar, dry Martinis, Shangri-La!') that starts with the insistence 'I'm gonna win' before reality dawns in the mid-song breakdown that no one has 'a hope in hell' when the pack is cut and the dice loaded.

Perhaps it's easy to read things into the songs because we know that two years later he'd be found dead in a friend's car aving succumbed to acute alcoholic poisoning, but it's hard to escape the feeling that Bon already knows he's on a highway to hell, that escaping back to his wife and living quietly is a dream he'll never realise.

As he sings on Up To My Neck In You: 'I've been up to my neck in pleasure/I've been up to my neck in pain/I've been up to my neck on the railway track/Waiting for the train'.

He's fantasising about tying Irene to a railroad track on What's Next To The Moon, hoping to convince her to take him back. In the chorus, he confesses 'It's her love that I want/It's her love that I need'.

On Gimme A Bullet, he's bemoaning 'Long distant lips/On the telephone/Come tomorrow, come to grips/With me all alone' before the feelings of powerlessness turn to anger on Kicked In The Teeth Again, which starts with a desperate wail of 'Two faced woman with your two-faced lies'.

Throw in a song about a girl overdosing on Gone Shootin' (which may have been where the Bon on smack rumours started, though spending your last night alive hanging out backstage with The Only Ones probably doesn't help) and this hardly fits in with the image of the twinkle-eyed wild man, which perhaps explains why Powerage remains neglected.

But I've saved the best to last because not all of Bon's woes were woman-related as he reveals in Down Payment Blues, one of the finest lyrics he ever wrote. Angus and Malcolm slow the pace down a little and sashay out an ebbing and flowing groove as Bon uses dry wit to reveal the reality of having spent a decade playing in rock bands but still having to avoid the rent man and struggle to feed his cat.

As he puts in the final verse: 'Feeling like a paper cup/Blowing down a storm drain/Got myself a sailing boat/But I can't afford a drop of rain'.

AC/DC went on to hit paydirt with the 49million-selling Back In Black, featuring Brian Johnson on vocals, which was released in July 1980, five months after Bon's death. His last letter to Irene - Bon never stopped writing even after she divorced him - finally arrived in Australia around the same time.

Considering the millions ending their marriage must have ultimately cost her, Irene probably finds Down Payment Blues a tough listen nowadays.

In 2003, she was invited along as AC/DC were inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame, despite the fact that she'd split up with Bon by the time he joined the band. During the evening, Angus told Irene that she was 'the only one Bon ever trusted', which is probably about as gushing as a Glaswegian-turned-Aussie-ocker ever gets.