Billy Squier - The Stroke Lyrics

"The Stroke" is a single by Billy Squier from the album Dont Say No.

Perhaps his most enduringly popular song, this was Squiers first single, reaching #17 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 8th Edition (Billboard Publications), page 594. It was an even bigger hit at rock radio, hitting #3 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Squier's song even dented the British pop charts, rising to #52. It was named the 59th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.

The song is a reference to the music industry and how musicians are used by an industry wanting more and bigger hits, and the concept of "strokes" from transactional analysis. It is not, as was widely but erroneously believed, about masturbation. The allusion to masturbation is not accidental and is part of the appeal of the song. The comparison of the recording reps as participants in a "circle jerk" is subtext.

William Haislip "Billy" Squier (born May 12, 1950 in Wellesley, Massachusetts) is an American rock musician. Squier had a string of arena rock hits in the 1980s. He is probably best known for the song "The Stroke" on his 1981 album release Dont Say No''. Other hits include "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", Everybody Wants You, "All Night Long" and "Emotions in Motion".