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*{{Duration|2:58}} (single version)
*{{Duration|3:35}} (''[[Double Platinum (Kiss album)|Double Platinum]]'' version)
*{{Duration|3:45}} (''[[Smashes, Thrashes & Hits]]'' version)
| label = [[Casablanca Records|Casablanca]]
| writer = [[Paul Stanley]], [[Bob Ezrin]]
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The song, recorded and released as a single in 1976, was the third single from Kiss's album ''Destroyer'' and was planned to be their last in support of the album. As a single, it did poorly in sales and radio play (other than in Detroit), and failed to chart in the U.S. even though it would prove to be a fan favorite. It came as a surprise that the B-side "[[Beth (song)|Beth]]", a ballad written and sung by drummer [[Peter Criss]], wound up catching on in different markets in the U.S., so the single was reissued with "Beth" as the A-side and "Detroit Rock City" as the B-side.
While the song briefly references [[Detroit]], the real-life incident which inspired the lyric evidently did not take place there. "I had the basic riff of the song, the 'Get up, get down' part," Stanley recalls, "but I didn't know what the song was about except it was about Detroit. And then I remembered on the previous tour, I think it was in [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]], somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena. I remember thinking how weird it is that people's lives end so quickly. People can be on their way to something that's really a party and a celebration of being alive and die in the process of doing it. So that became the basis for the lyric."<ref>Leaf, David and Ken Sharp, ''KISS: Behind the Mask - The Official Authorized Biography''</ref>
On ''Destroyer'', the song segues into "King of the Night Time World", via the sounds of a car crash. The songs were played together on the [[Destroyer Tour]].
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;Additional personnel
*[[Bob Ezrin]]{{snd}}spoken word and keyboards
==Charts==
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
!Chart (1976)
!Peak<br/>position
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{{single chart|Canadatopsingles|99|chartid=4356b|rowheader=true|refname=CAN1|access-date=February 20, 2024}}
|}
==References==
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