Def Leppard

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• came out of left field
• country
• metal
• calorie

• custom
• cassette tape
• stripper
• full-on

• cross-genre
• collaborated

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

There are very few bands in the world with an odd number of arms. Last week we learned about Lefty, the one-armed guitarist, so this week we present the most famous one-armed musician of all time: Rick Savage, the drummer of Def Leppard.

Savage lost his arm in a car crash in 1984, but his band never looked for a replacement. Even before he was out of the hospital, he knew he could build a custom drum set and make better use of his feet to continue playing just the way he used to. It was after that that he helped make the classic hits still played on the radio today as well as Def Leppard’s latest, “Nine Lives.”

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Marni

Beren

Marni:  So I was just busting out my old cassette tapes, going through and seeing what I still had.

Beren:  Got some Stryper?

Marni:  No, I was never into Stryper, but super into Def Leppard. Pyromania...

Beren:  I know the hits. Is it “Love Bites”?

Marni:  “Love Bites,” yeah. That’s actually Hysteria. Hysteria was their huge album from the late 80s that had “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and “Love Bites…”

Beren:  All the classic stripper songs?

Marni:  Yeah. All the classics. Total just hit after hit. That was a huge album for them. I actually just saw them in concert last year.

Beren:  No way.

Marni:  It was totally hilariously amazing. They still put on a full-on rock show and I have to admit, my curiosity was partly because their drummer…

Beren:  I was gonna say. Their drummer has one arm and it’s so funny because whenever I think of Def Leppard that’s immediately what I think of, the one arm. He lost it in a car accident, right?

Marni:  He lost it in a car accident.

Beren:  Are they British?

Marni:  They’re very British, yes. They just collaborated with Tim McGraw, which seems…

Beren:  ...out of left field.

Marni:  Out of left field, yeah. I don’t know. It’s the country thing and…

Beren:  “Love Bites” has kind of country-ish lyrics though.

Marni:  They were sort of soft metal. I don’t know how you’d describe them, but they’re just like…

Beren:  Metal light?

Marni:  Metal light, yeah. So maybe country isn’t such an odd pairing.

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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