Teenage Kicks

:This article is about the song by the Undertones. For the Finnish garage rock band of the same name, see Teenage Kicks(2). For the Festive Fifty-related blog of the same name, see Teenage Kicks (blog).
This song by the Belfast band the Undertones comes from the 'True Confessions' EP originally released in September 1978 by Belfast record shop owner Terri Hooley on his own Good Vibrations label in an initial pressing of 2,000 copies (Hooley claims it cost £100 to record, at Wizard Studios in Belfast). Ken Garner relates that it is unclear how JP received his copy: Feargal Sharkey claims he sent him one, but Hooley counter-claims that he left a copy at Radio 1 for the DJ after trying without success to sell it to some major labels (Garner, K., The Peel Sessions, p. 102).
What is beyond dispute is that John programmed all four tracks (Teenage Kicks/Smarter Than U/True Confessions/Emergency Cases) into his 12 September 1978 show, and played the lead track repeatedly over the next two weeks. This led to a record deal with Sire and the single was re-released on that label in October, going on to make number 31 in the UK charts.
The song was among the bonus tracks added to the first Undertones album when it was reissued with a new cover after a few months. Peel chose it as his contribution to a programme where various personalities read out their favourite poems, and he noted that Sheila had promised to play it at his funeral . As he additionally requested, the opening line, "Teenage dreams so hard to beat" (a misquotation of the actual lyrics "A teenage dream's so hard to beat") was inscribed on his tombstone.
In March 2018 Teenage Kicks was the winner of the "Debut Singles World Cup" competition on the Steve Lamacq show on BBC Radio 6 Music, beating Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights in the 'final' (and beating Damned, Oasis and Sex Pistols along the way). Lamacq played the winning track with a recorded introduction by John Peel.
== From The Horse's Mouth ==
JOHN WALTERS: Can we finish this programme with not necessarily an example of pure punk, but of something that probably couldn't have happened without the spirit of punk, from that era?
JOHN PEEL: Well, I always, every time I do one of my terrible gigs, whatever records I play in the course of it, which tend to be not the ones which people request...people come up and say to me, "Can you play something by the Sisters Of Mercy?", I just say, "Under no circumstances whatsoever am I going to play anything by the Sisters Of Mercy!". But they always come up to me at some stage and say, "When are you going to play 'Teenage Kicks'?", and I say that I shall play 'Teenage Kicks', as I have done for ten years, at the end of the event, and I always sign off with some false modest observation, and then finish with 'Teenage Kicks', which I still maintain is the best record ever made. (Peeling Back The Years, 1987, Episode 4.)
*"This was a record which somebody else did play on the radio, I was driving up to see Liverpool play and I was in a traffic jam round Stoke-on-Trent, I think, and I heard Peter Powell play the Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks' which I'd been playing for months, but to hear it played by someone else was a stupendous thing and I actually burst into floods of tears in the traffic jam - I'll try not to cry now..." (JP, Desert Island Discs, 1990)
*"For the rest of his life, it was the song that could be relied upon to give him a fillip after a day of uninspiring new records....There was, he would say, nothing that could be added to or subtracted from 'Teenage Kicks' to make it any better than it already was." (Ravenscroft, S., Margrave Of The Marshes, p. 374-5)
== Shows featured ==
Data below includes information from Phil's Mighty Database and Lorcan's Tracklistings Archive as well as The Peel Sessions by Ken Garner (p. 102), but it is only a preliminary listing. Please add any missing information.
thumb|300px|right|So hard to beat
;1978
*12 September 1978 (first play, along with rest of EP)
*14 September 1978
*15 September 1978
*25 September 1978 (played twice)
*29 September 1978
*03 October 1978
*13 October 1978
*24 October 1978
*27 October 1978
*31 October 1978
;1979
*01 January 1979 (1978 Festive Fifty #10)
*02 January 1979
*19 March 1979
*16 April 1979
*28 May 1979
*Walhalla (21-08-79)
*30 August 1979 (40th Birthday)
*13 September 1979
;1980
*01 January 1980 (1979 Festive Fifty #02)
*31 March 1980
*30 December 1980 (1980 Festive Fifty #07)
;1981
*15 October 1981
*30 December 1981 (1981 Festive Fifty #06)
;1982
*29 December 1982 (1982 Festive Fifty AT #08)
;1987
*April 1987 (Radio Bremen)
;1989
*11 January 1989
*JG Tape 38 Mainly Peel July August 1989
*07 September 1989
;1991
*12 January 1991
*25 August 1991
;1992
*16 May 1992
;1993
*06 April 1993 (Peel is Brambles)
;1994
*16 August 1994 (BBC World Service)
;1995
*20 May 1995
*27 May 1995 (BFBS)
;1996
*06 October 1996
*10 October 1996 (BFBS)
;1997
*18 February 1997 (return to mid-week slot)
*12 August 1997
*01 October 1997 (35 years at BBC)
;1998
*06 October 1998
;1999
*24 June 1999 (Glastonbury Mix)
*31 August 1999 (60th birthday)
*14 September 1999
*30 November 1999 (Peelenium 1978)
;2000
*26 January 2000 (All Time FF #2)
*19 December 2000 (25th anniversary of Festive Fifty special)
;2001
*21 June 2001 (DJ set at Sonar)
;2003
*06 March 2003
*18 December 2003 (Radio Eins)
;2004
*08 April 2004
;Other
*My Top Ten
*Desert Island Discs
*Peelenium
*John Peel's Record Box
*John Peel Remembered
*Radio 1 Vintage - John Peel
== Cover Versions ==
Ash: (session)
*06 June 2001
b-side 'Sometimes' single (Infectious)
*10 July 2001
*18 July 2001
DJ Remould: single (Shifty Disco)
*28 May 1997 (JP: 'A blot and a blasphemy, but none the less enjoyable for all that.')
Dawn Chorus & The Blue Tits: (session)
*04 March 1985
(7” single) Stiff
*27 March 1985
*14 April 1985 (BFBS)
*14 August 1990
*07 July 1991
Sean Dickson: live at Peel Acres
*05 July 2001
Hi-Fidelity: (LP - John Peel's Birthday CD) white label
*21 September 1999
Kickstand: (LP - Kickstand) Queenie
* 09 December 1994
London Punkharmonic Orchestra: (CD - Classical Punk) Music club
*20 May 1995
*16 March 1996
Nouvelle Vague: (LP- Nouvelle Vague) Peacefrog
*19 May 2004
Punk Rock Baby: (LP - Punk Rock Baby) Punk Rock Baby
*04 June 2002
*11 June 2002
Snow Patrol: Live In Austin
*06 April 2004
Solex: (session)
*31 August 1999 (60th birthday)
(CD - John Peel's Birthday CD) white label
*23 September 1999
Therapy: (7 inch-Have A Merry Fucking Christmas)' (A&M)
1993
*01 January 1993
*08 January 1993
*Peel Out In The States (Programs 01 & 02)
Unfinished Sympathy: session
*14 January 2004
== Links ==
*Wikipedia
Category:Songs
Category:Featured Articles
Category:Covered