"I Wanna Be Somebody" is the first single from heavy metal band W.A.S.P.'s debut album W.A.S.P.

It was ranked at #84 in VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs. The origin of the W.A.S.P. classic “I Wanna Be Somebody” is from watching a Barney Miller episode.

In the last few seasons of the show, Ron Glass, who played Detective Ron Harris, was writing a novel called “Blood on the Badge”, and his publisher had arranged for a book signing so he had gone to Miller and got the okay for some time off. Suddenly, as he is about to leave the office, a mugging detail comes and Captain Miller yells, “Harris, you and Dietrich go check it out!” “But what about my book signing?” Miller yells again. “Now!” Harris slams the phone down and yells, “God I Wanna Be Somebody!!!”

He did it with this sort of cry in his voice and it was really funny when he did it but then I thought about it and thought a lot of people probably feel like that and that was the origin of that song.

Lyrics

You say you don't wanna run and hide

A face that no-one knows

And everyone ya meet, you're gonna show

You're nobody's slave, nobody's chains are holdin' you

You hold your fist up high

And rule the zoo

Oh, you just got to be

Up high where the whole world's watching me

Cos I, I got the guts to be somebody ...to cry out

I wanna be somebody, Be somebody soon

I wanna be somebody Be somebody too

You say you don't wanna starve

Or take the table crumbs that fall

You don't wanna beg or plead at all

You don't want no nine to five

Your fingers to the bone

You don't want the rock piles' bloody stones

Oh, you just got to be

Up high where the whole world's watching me

Cos I, I got the guts to be somebody ...to cry out

I wanna be somebody, Be somebody soon

I wanna be somebody Be somebody too

I want shiny cars and dirty money

Lots of rock and roll

I will live in fame and die in flames

I'm never gettin' old

I wanna be somebody, Be somebody soon

I wanna be somebody Be somebody too

I'm gonna be somebody, I'm gonna be somebody