Songfacts®:

• This pugnacious-sounding rocker isn't really about beating up your enemies. "That was a pushback against the establishment, but it was more beat' em up with volume than with fists," the song's writer, Bob Halligan, Jr., explained to Songfacts.
  
  Those fists in the air are for rockin' out to the music, not for punching.
• "Beat 'Em Up" is part of Blue Öyster Cult's 10th album, Club Ninja, their first without founding member Allen Lanier. The band's popularity was diminishing, and a few years later their longtime label, Columbia, dropped them. They soldiered on into the '90s on smaller labels, led by their stalwarts Buck Dharma and Eric Bloom. Lead vocals on this song are by Bloom.
• BÖC wrote most of their music in house but this one came from an outside writer, Bob Halligan, Jr. He had a band called Pictures that flamed out, but he had a publishing deal and landed two songs with Judas Priest: "(Take These) Chains" and "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll." He didn't set out to be a hard rock writer but he certainly had a talent for it. After writing songs for the likes of Helix and Kix, he moved into more mellow material in the '90s, writing for Michael Bolton and Cher. Halligan formed his own band, the Celtic-influenced Ceili Rain, in 1995.
• With the fists-in-the-air imagery, "Beat 'Em Up" worked well as a live song. It was part of the setlist on Blue Öyster Cult's 1985 tour.