Wednesday, Jul 28, 2021 • 16min

Cheap Trick - Surrender

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The song "Surrender" by Cheap Trick was released in 1978. Rolling Stone called it the ultimate 70s teen anthem, and included it in their list of the greatest songs of all time. It’s been in a bunch of movies and tv shows—including South Park, Scrubs, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, New Girl, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Cheap Trick formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973. They’ve released 20 studio albums, they’ve sold over 20 million records, and in 2016 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rick Nielsen is the guitarist in the band. He wrote “Surrender,” and for this episode, I talked to him about how the song was made. For more, visit songexploder.net/cheap-trick http://songexploder.net/cheap-trick

Talking about

Speakers

(2)

Rick Nielsen

Hrishikesh Hirway

Transcript

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Hrishikesh Hirway

00:00

You're listening to

Song Exploder

where musicians take apart their songs and, piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made, my name is

Hrishikesh Hirway

Break

Hrishikesh Hirway

01:43

This episode doesn't contain any explicit language, but I still wanted to flag it in case there are any parents out there who listened to the podcast with their kids and if your kids are not old enough to know what an STD is yet, then you might get some questions you're not ready for, so just a heads-up.

02:05

The song "Surrender" by

Cheap Trick

was released in 1978.

Rolling Stone

called it the ultimate'70s teen anthem and included it in their list of the greatest songs of all time. It's been in a bunch of movies and TV shows, including

South Park,

Scrubs

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

New Girl

and

Guardians of the Galaxy

02:24

Cheap Trick

formed in

Rockford,

Illinois

in 1973. They've released 20 studio albums, they've sold over 20 million records, and in 2016 they were inducted into

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rick Nielsen

is the guitarist in the band, he wrote, "Surrender" and for this episode, I talked to him about how the song was made.

02:52

Mommy's all right, Daddy's all right, they just seem a little weird, surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away.

Rick Nielsen

03:08

My name is

Rick Nielsen

from

Cheap Trick

everybody I knew, thought your parents are weird or even if they're not weird to certain people, they're weird to the kid. Oh, my parents are weird, they wore that, or they did that or whatever. My father is an opera singer and my mother is an opera singer. My parents bought a music store in

Rockford

. My dad was choired directed trinity Lutheran church, but he also sang at temple and I think they were, they enjoyed the religious stuff for the music.

03:40

So it was probably 1973, and I was in my apartment in

Rockford

in the kitchen. I had the idea for the chorus, "Mommy's all right, my Daddy's all right, yeah", but it does seem a little weird.

03:58

I had a stream of conscience and I said it was like, "what are your parents doing? They tell you this? I tell you that it was like getting me back to being a 14-year-old". Mother told me, yes she told me I'd meet girls like you.

04:16

When I first wrote "Surrender".

Robin

was the singer. I just have a crappy voice, so I was always looking for somebody that could interpret what I was writing and could be the way I am in my writing, you know, he's kind of like a good singing or great singing

Johnny Rotten,

and he's got that snarl to him.

04:37

She also told me stay away, you'll never know what you catch. My parents didn't talk to me about the birds and the bees, I'm an only child, so I know my parents had sex once, but the good parents would let their sons and daughters know about this thing called syphilis or this thing called gonorrhea. If you're gonna be doing something, you better be careful. She also told me stay away, you'll never know what you catch.

05:11

Cheap Trick

started in 1973, "Surrender" was on

Heaven Tonight

. That was our third album, but we actually, we recorded on our first record, but Jack told us he was the producer of our first record, he didn't think it was the right time to put it out.

05:28

You know, we've played and rehearsed and wrote songs constantly during that period of time, you know, we weren't selling a lot of records, but we thought we were making good records, and we were just happy to be in the studio.

05:49

This is

Tom Petersson

on the bass. Well, that's

Bun E. Carlos

on the drums. I think it was the first time that I wanted to modulate. So the song starts at B flat. And then the first two verses are in B. Father says, your mother's right, she's really up on things. And the third verses in C. Whatever happened to all the season's losers of the year.

06:30

It was to make the song more exciting, I thought, you know, we can't do that with every song, but this was the right song for doing something like that, and we did it. Then I woke up, mom and dad are rolling on the couch, rolling numbers, rock and roll and got my Kiss records out.

06:54

My parents are losers, then here I wake up and there they are, got my Kiss records on, I mean, oh my God, that was like the ultimate slap in the face, young hell raisers in my brain, you know, loved him, and it was kind of the most disgusting thing to be associated with your parents, and they're listening Kiss, oh gee you know, it's like, I can't even figure out who to just believe in who to hate and who do you know? It's like ay, ay, ay.

07:22

Mommy's all right, Daddy's all right, they just seem a little weird surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away. I would have

Robin

close to the top of his range, so that way he could be more aggressive. He was a real singer, so he could sing the bad boy parts, and he could sing the good boy parts.

08:11

And

Robin

did his own backing vocals, but I'm in there somewhere too because if it was just a bunch of

Robin's

, it would sound too nice and just a bunch of me sound too crummy and such a bunch of times onto low and weird, but together makes it more aggressive, makes it more unbelievable, it sounds like

Cheap Trick

08:55

Yeah, you can hear the awful. I was trying to figure out what keyboard we used on that because we're about 85. I finally took it and smashed it, threw it off the stage and smashed it.

09:15

I left at the end of the recording because we had to get on tour and I, and they were going to play me rough over the phone. He said, "hey Rick, you gotta listen to this? Well, as bad as that sound, it sounded worse". I got back on the plane, went back. I didn't mind it when it was like in the mix, but when you have that instrument, you know, way out front, you can make anything sound awful.

09:47

I think the definitive version of "Surrenders" the life of Budokhan! version because it is live, and it's, it's more fun.