Song Exploder - Cheap Trick - Surrender

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

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

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode doesn't contain any explicit language, but I still wanted to flag it in case there are any parents out there who listen 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. 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. My name is Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick. Everybody I knew thought their parents were weird,

or even if they're not weird to certain people, they're weird to the kid. Oh, my parents are weird. Oh, 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 choir director at Trinity Lutheranshire.

but he also sang at Temple. I think they enjoyed the religious stuff for the music. 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 they just seem a little weird. I had a stream of consciousness, and it was like,

what are your parents doing? They tell you this, they tell you that. It was like getting me back to being a fortnight. year old. Mother told me, as she told me, I'd meet girls like you. 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 a great singing, Johnny Rotten. He's got that snarl to him. She also told me, stay away, you'll never know what you'll 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 going to be doing something, you better be careful.

She also told me, stay, I'll know what you'll catch. She tricked. in 1973. Surrender was on Heaven Tonight. That was our third album, but we actually, we recorded it on our first record. But Jack Douglas, he was the producer of our first

record. He didn't think it was the right time to put it out. You know, we 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. This is Tom Peters and on bass. Well, that's Bunny Carlos on the drums. I think it was the first time that I wanted to modulate. So the song starts in B flat, and then the first two verses are in B. And the third verse is in C. It was to make the song more exciting. I thought, you know, you can't do that with every song.

But this was the right song for doing something like it, and we did it. And I woke up, mom and dad are rolling on the couch. Rolling numbers, rock and roll and got my kiss records out. My parents are losers. Then here I wake up, and here they are, got my kiss records out. I mean, oh my God, that was like the ultimate slap in the face. Young hell raisers in my brain, you know, loved them. And it was kind of the most disgusting thing

to be associated with your parents. And they're listening to kids, oh, gee. You know, it's like, I can't even figure out who to disbelieve and who to hate and who to, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, y'allie. 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 sing 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. And Robin did his own backing vocals, but I'm in there somewhere too, because if it was just a bunch of robins,

it would sound too nice. And just a bunch of me sound too crummy. And a bunch of tombs sound too... low and weird, but together makes it more aggressive, makes it more believable. It sounds like cheap trick. Surrender is all right, surrender, but don't give up, but don't give it. Yeah, you can hear the awful. I was trying to figure out what keyboard we used on that.

Because about 85, I finally took it and smashed it, threw it off the stage and smashed it. I left at the end of the recording because we had to get on tour and they were going to play me ruffs over the phone. They said, hey, Rick Tietel, listen this. Well, as bad as that sound, it sounded worse. I got back on a plane and 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. I think the definitive version of Surrender is the Live of Buda

Boudicam version, because it is live and it's more fun. When we got to Japan, the album, Heaven Tonight, had just come out. So nobody really heard it there, but we played Surrender there, and it went over. Great. I didn't have a big plan for it. When you write songs, sometimes they just kind of spill out, and that one kind of spilled out, and who knew it was going to be popular? You know, I've written 400 songs that nobody's ever heard that I think are good, so that's a good one.

I want to ask you about the chorus, surrender, but don't give yourself away. Who's saying that to whom? It's me, me, or whoever sang, singing to his peers, singing to his classmates, singing to his friends. You know, I wish I could have done a few things a bit different growing up. I was thrown out a band. I was first chair on two instruments, a straight-A student in seventh grade when my parents had the music store. One day I went up to the band director,

and I said, Mr. Bishel, you're an incompetent, drunken fool who doesn't deserve to teach music to me or anybody else. Boom, I was thrown out that minute, and I was banned from the Rockford School System music program for life. I didn't heed my words. I should have done it a little more tactfully. You know, instead of fighting all the time with your parents and getting nowhere, give in a bit.

Don't cave on it, but, you know, what are you going to do tonight? Well, I'm going to take your car. I'm going to go drink beer. You know, lie about it. You don't need to tell them what you're really planning on doing, so don't give yourself away. My parents, I think they were just happy I had a job and happy that I was happy doing what I was doing.

And my dad always thought it was too loud and so a lot of other people. I think they liked that it wasn't cookie cutter kind of stuff. I was being me and the band was being us. We were never trying to be something that we weren't. And now here's Surrender by Cheap Trick in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net to learn more. You'll find links to buy or stream Surrender

and you can watch the video of Cheap Trick playing the song live in Japan. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs.

And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuckus, Josh Malina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website,

rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was made by me with editing help from Teeny Lieberson and Casey Deal, artwork by Carlos Lerma, and music clearance by Kathleen Smith. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hereway, and you can follow the show at Song Exploder. You can also get a Song Exploder t-shirt at Song Exploexpl dot net slash shirt. My name is Rishi-Kesh Heirway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.