It is THE live banger and audience favorite of the indestructible, full-throated colleagues AC/DC: The song “Whole Lotta Rosie”, which is traditionally celebrated with chants from the auditorium and an inflatable stage figure.
Whole Lotta Rosie comes from the Australians’ fourth album Let There Be Rock, released in punk spring 1977. The track’s composition is a collaboration between Angus Young and original members Malcolm Young (died 2017 in Sydney) and Bon Scott (died 1980 in London).
According to legend, the song is about a mysterious woman that the former AC/DC singer is said to have met after a performance in Tasmania. The wildest rumors surround this night, the text mentions plump body measurements (42″-39″-56″) and the total weight of “nineteen stone”, which corresponds to around 120 kilograms.
Fan circles have been speculating about Rosie’s true identity for decades.
Now hard rock maven Jesse Fink, a man with proven AC/DC expertise, claims he’s finally found the real woman from Bon Scott’s saga. A fleeting sexual adventure with an unknown being who, as the lyrics say, “wasn’t exactly pretty nor exactly small.”
Fink now writes in a recent blog post; which also shows blurred, pixelated photo material:
“The stories and legends surrounding the song are almost as pompous as the cartoonish stage prop that pops up behind the band at concerts,” says Fink.
“Rosie is etched into rock mythology. It was on the 1976 tour that Bon was allegedly dragged into a doorway by a woman of ample proportions while wandering the streets after a performance looking for distraction. … Rosie, as she was later known, was dating another girl at the time. And Bon went with them to their room together.”
Fink cites an interview in which Scott claims, “She would have broken my arm if I had refused.” Elsewhere he says: “She was the size of a closet that lay on you (…) She was too big to say no. So somehow I had to comply… I had to do it. Oh my god, I wish I hadn’t.”
Fink’s research spanned across Australia and led to a wide range of possible candidates. Even a small town mayor claimed to know the real Rosie.
“But it has been my experience that the people who now boast of knowing Rosie can never come up with more details than what is already available on the internet or in books; they don’t add anything new to the story,” says the AC/DC expert. During his research, the author was eventually approached by a woman who told him she knew Rosie. A hot lead.
According to Fink, Rose-Maree Carroll (Garcia) worked as a prostitute or brothel operator and died on March 2, 1979 at the age of 22 from a drug overdose.
Attached to his post is a photo showing Garcia and her boyfriend Graeme Fry, who hoped posting this photo would reconnect with other friends from that time.
“Case closed,” writes Fink.
“This is ‘Whole Lotta Rosie.’ A human being; not the butt of a gentleman’s joke… She had red hair and isn’t nearly as gigantic as the song suggests. Bon was just the born sailor’s yarn spinner. It’s just a shame there’s such a sad story behind it.”
There are more dönekes in Fink’s latest book, an updated version of Bon: The Last Highway: The Untold Story of Bon Scott and AC/DC’s Back in Black, which can be ordered as an import on the relevant online platforms.