"Breaking the Law" is a song by British heavy metal band Judas Priest, originally released on their 1980 album British Steel. The song is one of the band's better known singles, and is readily recognized by its opening guitar riff.

Prior to releasing 1980's British Steel, Judas Priest had been making moves toward streamlining their music into a simpler, less processed sound. That approach came to full fruition on British Steel. "Breaking the Law" combines a recognizable minor-key opening riff and a rhythmic chorus as its main hooks. There is a change-up on the mostly instrumental bridge, a new chord progression with Halford shouting "You don't know what it's like!" before the sound effect of a police car's siren (made by Downing using a ) leads back into the main riff. More recent live performances of the song have featured a short solo by Downing over the bridge. The outro of the song is the main riff played repeatedly with Halford singing the chorus and Downing playing power chords.

The lyrics tell of someone at the rock bottom in their life - out of work, unable to find work, frustrated, feeling that nobody cares if they live or die, eventually turning to crime for survival.

The song features some sound effects, including the sound of breaking glass and a police siren. The band were recording British Steel at Tittenhurst Park, which was the home of The Beatles's drummer Ringo Starr. For the breaking glass effect, the band used milk bottles that a milkman brought them in the morning, and the police siren was actually guitarist K. K. Downing using the tremolo arm on his Stratocaster.

The song has been played live frequently ever since its release, and has slowly evolved over the years, for example with an added guitar solo by K. K. Downing over the bridge.

Directed by Julien Temple, the video starts with vocalist Rob Halford singing from the back of an open-top Cadillac car travelling along on the Westway section of the A40 in West London. The car eventually parks outside an unnamed bank near Oxford Street (the decor suggests it is a branch of Barclays Bank Plc). Halford meets with two men dressed as priests carrying guitar cases and they enter the bank together. For the breaking the law chorus the two men remove their disguises and are revealed to be guitarists K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton. They are then joined by bassist Ian Hill and drummer Dave Holland. The people in the bank are incapacitated by the guitars. Meanwhile, the security guard (who has only just awoken) watches on in amazement on the CCTV screens. The band breaks into the safe (with Halford showing 'extraordinary' strength in pulling apart the iron bars). Halford takes from the safe a golden record award for the British Steel album (the music video was shot before the album went platinum). They soon leave the bank with the record, get back into the car and drive away. Concert footage of Judas Priest is now on the CCTV screens and we see the security guard miming along with a fake guitar very much lost in the music. The video ends with the full band driving back along the A40 repeating the chorus until the song is finished.

...
Wikipedia