I agree it doesn’t make sense. But I still hear it in the recorded version. I’m going to check and see if I can find him singing it live.
OK, I’ve researched this before. What I found is that it is the N word in the song.
Two important things to remember here :
-
In Australia, that word USED to mean “hobo” or “bum”, it does NOT carry the same offensive weight that it does here in the States. I was in Sydney during the whole Paula Deen fiasco, and every newspaper I picked up used the word repeatedly when covering the story. In plain print, the N word used over and over. I showed it to one of the people I was working with and they couldn’t understand why it was so offensive. Different culture, different country, different expressions.
-
That song was written in 1979. They’ve since changed the “official” lyrics listed on their website because of the modern way of thinking when it comes to that word.
EDIT: another note…why would you need a “season ticket” if it’s a “one way ride?” The actual lyric is “send a N***** on a one-way ride” which I understand as “get rid of the bums in my life.”
There’s no possible way that first word is “send.”
Why wouldn’t you? That’s often what you do with something like a Eurail pass? You buy a season ticket because it’s cheaper than the cost of individual tickets, and of course it would make sense to buy a season ticket even for a one-way ride. If I want to explore the world and “live free,” I don’t want to come back to where I started, so I’ll buy a season ticket and just go one way.
My bad, typo there… it’s not “send” it’s actually “sent.”
OK, it’s definitely not “sent,” either. There’s a clear long “e” sound and an “s/z” at the end there. I mean, I can understand how someone might hear “sees/seize a nigger” or even possibly “she’s a nigger,” but “sent a nigger?” I just can’t make the sounds I hear on that track form those words.
Here’s the first hit on Bon Scott singing it live. I think it’s pretty clear there he sings “season ticket.”
Per a thread over in IMHO, I think: Yeah…no. 
I’ve always heard it to be quite obviously “season ticket”, but I mostly listen to the Brian Johnson version from AC/DC Live. There are other lines/songs I get ??? about, but not that one.
Why would you need a highway to hell? What you want to get there quicker than taking side streets?
Season Ticket - even on the Tiny Timversion.
Not sure where you’ve done your research SykoScotty, but Australian usage was always aimed at Aboriginal people and to a lesser extent anyone with a darker skin. The sensitivities are still strong, but it does get used in reportage and with air quotes.
If Tiny Tim is singing it as season ticket in 1989, then they must have changed it within the first 10 years of its release.
And ‘season ticket on a one way ride’ is a bit like putting it up to 11, its [and here my lack of grammar fails me] simile / metaphor / allegory / words and that.
Just say it’s wordplay, then you don’t have to remember the specific term!
The problem with “nigger” as the word in that link you gave is that his slurred “ticket” has a mangled “t/d” sound at the front. It could be “tikgert”, “tigger”, or “diggert” but there is absolutely* no* “n” enunciation in that word which is pretty necessary for “nigger”.
Really? I get that it might not hold the same weight over here, but did they seriously not know how offensive it is in the US? That seems pretty ignorant to me.
Then again, I was quite surprised when I found out that ‘cunt’ was considered fairly misogynistic in the US. Down here it’s used as a generic insult (towards men and women) and sometimes as a synonym for “mate” or “bro”.
Back on the topic of the n-word, my grandfather used to use it to refer to black fish. And it wasn’t just him, I remember going to a fishing club with him and someone else using it also. This happened this century. And he knew it was offensive. I remember him telling me about how you’re not allowed to say that anymore.
Maybe he is saying “Tigger” and he wants to send him on a one way ride because he doesn’t like fun, fun, fun, fun, fun?
Sorry - Bon Scott was a well-educated, classically trained musician.
Don’t believe me? Check out his workpre AC/DC.
Oh, so lovely.
Rory Gallagher wants his shirt back.
That is wonderful and so perfectly “off” from AC/DC. What a hoot. I would LOVE to hear that band singing Whole Lotta Rosie.
Watching musicians try out different genres is always educational. Like hearing that Tupac studied ballet. Thug Life, indeed.
To expand on this, it’s a good thing for Bon Scott (or for his career, at least) that Malcolm and Angus Young came along.
And vice-versa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXJZT9RyLoE
Frankly, if it hadn’t been for the guy who Classic Rock Magazine called the Greatest Frontman of All Time, it’s doubtful we’d have ever even heard of AC/DC, let alone seen them sell out stadiums worldwide.
And I’m still not hearing “nigger”.
Another AC/DC fan here. Never heard that line as anything other than “Season ticket on a one way ride”. It makes perfect sense in the context of the song - just read all of the lyrics.
Off the top of my head the only mention of race that I can even think of in any of their songs is at the beginning of “Let There Be Rock” (“The white man had the schmaltz, the black man had the blues…”).
Sees a nigger on a one way ride
What the hell would that even mean???