“Cold Gin” by Kiss

Ace Frehley wrote "Cold Gin" on a subway ride, borrowing the spark for its riff from Free's "Fire and Water", and Kiss put it on their self-titled debut in 1974. Funny thing is, Frehley doesn't sing it: Gene Simmons takes the lead vocal and thumps the bass, Frehley and Paul Stanley crank the guitars, and Peter Criss pounds the drums and joins Stanley on backing vocals. Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise produced, with Warren Dewey engineering and mixing.

It's a barroom stomper, but no party anthem. Frehley spelled it out in his 2011 book No Regrets: it's about somebody broke, lonely and drinking, not the booze-soaked bad romance plenty of listeners hear in it. Guitar World still ranked it No. 7 among the greatest drinking songs, and onstage it often stretched out a couple of extra minutes so Frehley could cut loose.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.