We Built This City

@johnwi77 I think you're pretty close here John. Dragging up from my memory an interview with one of the band, it was written as a protest against the non-music part of the music industry. There were plans to put on a free music festival in San Francisco, but the "great and the good" of that city objected. The interviewee pointed out that a large proportion of the population of SF were employed, either directly or indirectly, by the music industry. All the producers, photographers, studio owners, but more importantly the accountants and lawyers, were quite happy to earn a lot of money from the bands but didn't like them. Perhaps the most significant/infamous of these people were the record company executives. What they liked was making money, not music.

The word "Say" at the start of the first two lines maybe said: Admit it - or say it, that you don't know or care about the people in the industry or the fans. "You don't know me, or recognise my face, You don't care who goes to that kind of place."

The movers and the shakers (quite often the non-creative elements) had nothing in common with those who were really making the money for them - the fans. Not only that but they didn't care about the artistes either, just the money.

I wonder if the line "Too many runaways eating up the night" was possibly referring to just that; runaways. Young people with problems who might listen to their clients' music.

Marconi must refer to the inventor of radio. Someone from Morocco would be a Moroccan. "We built this city on rock and roll" is pretty self explanatory.

The reference to playing corporation games and changing corporation names is probably about companies within companies and tax avoidance.

"We just want to dance here, someone stole the stage, they call us irresponsible, write us off the page".The youngsters just want to have a good time dancing to the music but the music establishment just want to criticise them and issue derogatory press statements.

"Who counts the money underneath the bar" The establishment don't reveal how much money they make, either to the bands or the tax authorities.

"Who rides the wrecking ball into rock guitars" They are destroying the real music and making it TOO commercial. I don't think Takin' it to the Streets by the Doobies was written with how much money it would make as the objective, there was a social message there. When Jefferson Airplane wrote White Rabbit they wanted to tell a story, now make a million. If accountants had written "What's Going On" to be sung by Marvin Gaye, there would have been nothing about young black men dying or mercury in fish.

So my take is that the managers, accountants, lawyers and executives wanted to make their money, and lots of it, but thought the musicians and fans as just so much money earned rather than people. They still wanted to wear the black tie and dinner suit (Tuxedo) and go to the opera, but didn't want a free concert because they wouldn't earn anything, plus who would want all those nasty young people with their long hair. That's my take anyway, and as it's now 1:24 am and I've been awake since 4:15, I need to got to sleep before the brains ceases to function altogether