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The song would later be included in the Parents Music Resource Center’s (PMRC) “Filthy 15,” a list of fifteen songs that the committee took issue with due to vulgar or indecent subject matter. A promotional video was released for the song, despite it not being released as a single, and the track’s popularity has persisted through the years, with it being included in the band’s live repertoire up until 2011. The title track assumes the slash-and-burn mentality of the preceding numbers and, in under three and a half minutes, paints a portrait of renegades out on the town, looking for trouble and well-aware of their own less-than-admirable intentions.

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Forgoing the more expansive, experimental approach being applied by popular bands at the time – Pink Floyd’s The Wall had been released just over a year prior to the album’s recording – Def Leppard consolidate their musicality into quick licks and melodies that crack like a whip and just as quickly re-emerge in an altered context. The songs contained throughout High ‘n’ Dry are concise, with only one track, “On Through the Night,” surpassing a five minute runtime, albeit by only six seconds. “Another Hit and Run” continues the boisterous musical motif and seemingly takes aim at the band’s home-territory of the UK, which was notably hesitant to accept the band, as they achieved their first big break overseas in the Americas. The outro break of the song displays the band’s chemistry – they were an exceptionally fine-tuned live band at this stage – with Rick Allen filling the spaces between deep, sustained barre chords to the brim with a flurry tom-tom fills, a technique which was staple of his playing style prior to the notorious accident which would claim his left arm. The rhythm section, along with singer Joe Elliot, orbit the crackling guitar interplay between Steve Clark and Pete Willis, predicting musical openings and inserting their respective strands of musical DNA accordingly, concocting a fluid, but unfaltering mass of sound that never quite approaches overkill due to the songs’ reliance on their core musical elements throughout. Featuring numerous allusions to carnal pursuits and tossing in a curse word before the album even reaches its first chorus, “Let It Go” sends a clear message that this is a band with teeth and they aren’t here to play games, a message which persists through the album’s ten tracks. Musically, the track is indicative of much of the rest of the album, and features tight, yet unpolished hard rock which incorporates elements of heavy metal and glam rock. Though High ‘n’ Dry was more the band’s pathway to mega-stardom than their gateway to it, the album was responsible for some of their most enduring songs, such as opening number and first single “Let It Go.” The song, which was originally written and performed under the name “When the Rain Falls,” has appeared on numerous compilation albums since its release, and continues to be performed live by the band. Essentially, High ‘n’ Dry is the final instance of Def Leppard recording a studio album on which the songs would be presented to sound the way they might on cramped club stage. Despite the overwhelming popularity the band would attain through later releases, there exists an impassioned minority for whom this album and its predecessor, On Through the Night, are representative of the definitive version of the band. While the pop embellishments which would adorn future releases are present throughout High ‘n’ Dry, the album would be the last to feature a more primitive iteration of Def Leppard which was road-tested, well-rehearsed, and much more direct in their presentation of straight-ahead rock music.