Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane.

I see that Justin has ably defused any appeal this song might have had for you as theme music for the storm-touched weekend. Nevertheless, I am without prepared remarks and not in the mood to present to you a detailed post. I'm waiting to see how Meyerland pulls through Ike.

In lieu of anything smart or worthwhile, I present to you something even worse than the video you remember. It's an acoustic version. Note that all the trappings of an acoustic rock show are here (the background singers, the "exotic" percussion, the faux-flamenco flavor).

But the Scorpions were always about taking the cliche to the next level, and here you can see that dedication embodied in the acoustic Flying V.

It's too bad this version strips away the only two things that were tolerable about the original recording. As Justin said, the lyrics are offensive in their terribleness, and in this version you can hear and understand every German-inflected nuance as it's limply recited. I prefer the Klaus Meine's more unintelligible wailing in the original.

The other loss is the wicked guitar solo, which I loved when I was a kid and didn't know any better. Not long ago, I encountered it again on Guitar Hero III. As I feebly tried to match notes on my Wii with a fake Les Paul and real pick, I regained some appreciation for its purely athletic virtues. This is the GH3 version on the hardest difficulty level (expert).

Some people can do 100 pull-ups and some people can play scales really fast. I'm happy to have my cowboy chords and my (acquired) good taste. It's difficult for me to remember how or why I loved this song when I was a skinny, nerdy kid who couldn't play guitar and didn't know how music was made. I don't hear music with those ears anymore. But I remember that even bad music was magic then.