Thin Lizzy / Black Rose: A Rock Legend / 1979
Do Anything You Want to Do
defiant, anthemic, tinged with unease by the end
An anthem of defiant self-assertion built almost entirely from imperative pep-talk and repeated affirmation, warning the listener about people who will try to tear them down before insisting they can live entirely on their own terms. The Elvis references near the end puncture the uplift with a jarring reminder of mortality and fallen icons, complicating the song's triumphalism.
self-empowerment social pressure and gossip autonomy vs. conformity fame and its cost mortality
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addresses a second-person 'you' directly, positioning himself as mentor or ally warning them against hostile outsiders; the voice is confident bordering on sloganeering, though the late shift to naming a dead icon suggests the narrator is less certain than the chorus lets on.
What happens
The song opens by cataloguing the ways others will try to undermine the addressee -- scrutiny, intimidation, gossip -- before pivoting to a repeated assurance that the addressee has full freedom to act as they please. The bridge escalates the encouragement, framing the addressee as no one's puppet. The final section breaks from the pep-talk structure entirely, introducing a call-and-response about Elvis's death, which reframes the preceding freedom-talk against the reality of a fallen idol.
How it's built
Two verses of cautionary description lead into an identical, heavily repeated chorus, functioning almost like a chant. A bridge intensifies the direct address before a final chorus repetition. The song then abandons its verse-chorus form for a coda built on short repeated exchanges, ending on the Elvis references, which act as a destabilizing tag rather than a resolution.
Section by section
Opening verse
“investigate you”
The verse imagines an almost paranoid social apparatus of scrutiny and manipulation, setting up the addressee as under siege before any reassurance arrives.
First chorus
The hook strips away nuance in favor of blunt repetition, functioning less as argument and more as incantation -- the simplicity is the point, meant to override the complicated threats just described.
Second verse
The threats shift from investigation to judgment and slander, with the twist that the persecutors will eventually owe the addressee an apology, reframing the addressee's endurance as a form of vindication.
Bridge
“not their puppet on a string”
This is the clearest statement of the song's thesis, explicitly naming the danger being resisted as external control, and briefly making the narrator's own freedom the model to emulate.
Coda
“Elvis is dead”
The sudden, unadorned announcement breaks the song's rhetorical mode entirely. Rather than extending the empowerment message, it introduces a stark counterexample -- a figure who seemingly could do anything he wanted and still met an unglamorous end -- leaving the song's optimism oddly shadowed rather than affirmed.
Craft
- anaphora
- The chorus leans on repeated phrasing built around permission and want, drilling the central message into the listener through insistence rather than development.
- direct address
- The constant use of 'you' collapses distance between singer and listener, turning the song into a personal pep-talk rather than a story about someone else.
- catalogue/list
- The verses stack near-synonymous verbs describing hostile social behavior, piling up threats to make the surrounding world feel dense and conspiratorial before the chorus offers release.
- juxtaposition
- The triumphant, freedom-declaring chorus is undercut by the coda's blunt statement of an idol's death, placing aspiration next to mortality without reconciling them.
Reading it
On its surface this is a straightforward anthem of self-liberation, telling the listener to ignore critics and act freely -- a fairly conventional rock trope. But the closing invocation of Elvis's death resists easy triumphalism: it can be read as a memento mori that quietly questions whether unlimited self-determination protects anyone from mortality or ruin, or alternatively as a throwaway, almost mischievous non-sequitur typical of live rock showmanship, tacked on for shock or humor rather than thematic weight. I find the darker reading more persuasive given how deliberately it interrupts the song's structure, but the alternative -- that it's simply a performative aside -- is plausible and cannot be ruled out from the text alone.
Context
I'm not fully certain of the song's authorship history within Thin Lizzy's catalogue or whether it draws on any earlier recording; I don't want to assert a songwriting credit or session detail I'm not sure of. The Elvis reference places the song after 1977, consistent with its 1979 release on Black Rose, and likely reflects the general shockwave of Presley's death still resonating in rock culture at the time, though I can't confirm any specific intent behind its inclusion here.
Listen for
- how the verses' cluttered, multisyllabic verbs contrast with the chorus's short, plain vocabulary
- the way repetition in the chorus builds through sheer insistence rather than melodic or lyrical variation
- the tonal break when the song drops out of its verse-chorus pattern for the closing exchange
- whether the Elvis lines are delivered as triumphant, mournful, or ironic in performance
About Thin Lizzy
Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1969. The band initially consisted of bass guitarist, lead vocalist, and principal songwriter Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey, guitarist Eric Bell, and organist Eric Wrixon, although Wrixon left after a few months.
1969 - present / Ireland
Full biography and catalogue