Songfacts®:

• This head-banger from Judas Priest has a layer of meaning most don't pick up on. "I discovered that I could write heavy metal lyrics metaphorically and have my own subtext," the song's writer, Bob Halligan Jr., told Songfacts in 2023. "'Some Heads Are Gonna Roll' is a warning against nuclear holocaust. It's really a message that continues to be timely to this day. If the man with the power can't keep it under control, some heads are gonna roll."
  
  "It sounds like an aggressive, angry, vengeful persona there, but it's really more 'watch out' rather than rather than 'I want to hurt people,'" he added. "People can easily get hurt when man's greed for power and money wins the day."
• "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll" is the second single from Judas Priest's album Defenders Of The Faith, following "Freewheel Burning." A British metal band, they gained a foothold in America with their previous album, Screaming For Vengeance, and the hit "You've Got Another Thing Comin'." Metal was picking up steam in 1984 (Metallica released their second album that year, Ride The Lightning), which benefited the band. They became a top live act, with "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll" a concert favorite.
• This is the only song on the album that wasn't written by band members Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. Bob Halligan Jr., who wrote it, is an American songwriter who caught a huge break when Priest recorded his composition "(Take These) Chains" two years earlier on Screaming For Vengeance, where it was also the only song by an outside writer. Halligan wrote that song targeting more conventional rock bands like Foreigner. When he found out Judas Priest was recording it, his response was, "Who?" Halligan had never heard of them - not unusual for an American in 1982. He quickly learned that the band had a huge fanbase and that his song was earning him substantial royalties. His wife urged him to write another song for the band, so he came up with "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll." To his surprise, they recorded the song, establishing Halligan as a heavy metal tunesmith, something he never intended. Over the next few year, he wrote song for the likes of Blue Öyster Cult ("Make Rock, Not War," "Beat 'Em Up") and Kiss ("Read My Body," "Rise To It"). Rob Halford recorded Halligan's "Twist" on his 2000 album Resurrection.
• In his Songfacts interview, Bob Halligan Jr. explained how he crafted the song specifically for Judas Priest. "I wrote it on the guitar instead of the piano, which I had used for '(Take These) Chains,'" he said. "And I specifically put in guitar riffs that I felt would work for them. As far as the vocal, I knew it had to be high, but I also knew that I couldn't do a demo where I could imitate what Rob might do, so I pitched it in a tenor range and hoped for the best. I let Rob do his improv, which he definitely did, certainly live. All those incredibly high screeches and stuff toward the end of the song are amazing and way beyond anything I could do myself."