Breaking the Law

Judas Priest were moving toward a simpler, less processed sound ahead of their 1980 album British Steel, and that approach shaped "Breaking the Law." The band recorded the album at Tittenhurst Park, the home of the Beatles' drummer Ringo Starr. Rob Halford drew the lyrics from unrest in Britain at the time, later recalling government strife, striking miners, striking car unions and street riots, and saying he wanted to write words that connected with the feeling out there.

The track pairs a minor-key opening riff with a rhythmic chorus, and on the mostly instrumental bridge Halford shouts "You don't know what it's like!" before a police siren leads back into the main riff. The siren was actually guitarist K. K. Downing using the tremolo arm on his Stratocaster. The breaking glass sound came from milk bottles that a milkman brought the band in the morning.

Julien Temple directed the music video, which opens with Halford singing from the back of a 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Eldorado convertible. He meets two men dressed as priests, and the pair reveal themselves as Downing and Glenn Tipton before the band robs a bank. Halford pulls apart the iron bars of the safe and takes out a golden record award for British Steel, which had not yet gone platinum when the video was shot. Downing later called it probably the first ever heavy metal conceptual video.