“Teenage Kicks” by The Undertones

"Teenage Kicks" is where the Undertones started: the Northern Irish punk band's debut single, a song rhythm guitarist and chief songwriter John O'Neill wrote in the summer of 1977 and the group cut on June 15, 1978. It first came out that September on an EP for Good Vibrations, a small independent label in Belfast, and once Sire signed the band in October the new label put it back out as a plain single. It's a rush of buzzing chords and adolescent nerves, with a pop hook sharp enough to cut.

John Peel heard it and never got over it. The first time he played it on his show, on September 25, he spun it twice, something he had never done, and he called it his favourite song until his death in 2004, even asking for some of its words on his headstone. It missed the Undertones' debut album in May 1979, and was added when that record was reissued in October.

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