{"id":322808,"date":"2025-11-30T18:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322808\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:33:10","slug":"the-stolen-riff-behind-two-of-cheap-tricks-biggest-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322808\/","title":{"rendered":"The stolen riff behind two of Cheap Trick’s biggest hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Minimalism met rock in 1972 when Pete Townshend wrote \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley.\u201d The song\u2019s cyclic, arpeggiating riff was inspired by the work of avant-garde composer Terry Riley and became the driving rhythmic force behind \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley,\u201d the anthem that is itself the launch pad for Who\u2019s Next<\/a>, the band\u2019s landmark 1972 album.<\/p>\n

Although it\u2019s often described as a synthesizer line, Townshend created the riff on a Lowrey Berkshire Deluxe TBO-1 home organ<\/a> by using its \u201cMarimba Repeat\u201d setting, which gives it the sort of synthetic, percolating rhythmic pulse associated with early electronic synthesizer music.<\/p>\n

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As hooks go, it\u2019s a great one, grabbing listeners\u2019 ears, pulling them in and holding them hostage for the track\u2019s full five-minute length.<\/p>\n

Best picks for you<\/p>\n

Producer Tom Werman was among the listeners captivated by Townshend\u2019s synth-like line. As it turns out, he liked it so much that he took it for his own when recording a pair of hits for Cheap Trick later in the decade.<\/p>\n

The idea first struck him while recording \u201cSurrender,\u201d from the group\u2019s 1978 album, Heaven Tonight. Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen wrote the tune as a “rock nursery rhyme” about his own youthful perception of his parents’ “weirdness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote it at home late one night,\u201d he told Guitar Player<\/a>. \u201cI was playing an unplugged electric guitar, and I had a rhythm thing going on. Then I started singing to myself: \u2018Mother told me, yes, she told me, I\u2019d meet girls like you.\u2019 It kind of sounded like a nursery rhyme to me, only it was a rock nursery rhyme for somebody in high school wearing a leather jacket.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote down lyrics as I went. It was all kind of stream of consciousness, but a lot of it was true. \u2018Mommy\u2019s all right, daddy\u2019s all right, they\u2019re just a little bit weird.\u2019 Whose parents aren\u2019t weird? My parents were weird.\u201d (This from a guy who plays a five-necked guitar<\/a>?)<\/p>\n

All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Cheap Trick – Surrender (Official Audio) – YouTube
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While hearing Nielsen pound out the song\u2019s opening chords on his electric guitar<\/a>, Werman had an idea. Maybe it was the song\u2019s theme of teenage alienation that brought the music of Pete Townshend to mind. After all, the producer said, \u201cPete Townshend was always my main musical inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever it was, Werman got it in his head to use Townshend\u2019s \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley\u201d riff behind Nielsen\u2019s power chords. \u201cI just plain stole it<\/a>,\u201d he admitted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took the keyboard riff from \u2018Baba O\u2019 Riley\u2019 by the Who and I put it in \u2018Surrender,\u2019 because it sounded good and it supported Rick\u2019s signature riffs,\u201d Werman tells Guitar Player. \u201cThat was my main contribution to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don’t miss these<\/p>\n

The song made the perfect opener for Heaven Tonight, an album of power-pop tunes made with radio-friendly production that positioned Cheap Trick as a group ready for arenas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just loved what we did with \u2018Surrender,\u2019\u201d Werman says. \u201cWe were all excited about the track. It wasn\u2019t a huge hit, but it got a lot of airplay.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormally the song that opens up side one of an album is your choice for the strongest song on the record, and the first song on side one of Heaven Tonight was \u2018Surrender.\u2019 But there could have been a lot of those, because there are so many good songs on the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"CIRCA\n<\/p>\n

Rick Nielsen and Pete Townshend have a chat, possibly about copyright law, circa 1980. (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Released as a single in June 1978, \u201cSurrender\u201d got Cheap Trick in the Hot 100 \u2014 at number 62 \u2014 and helped push Heaven Tonight to number 48. In Japan, the album notched in at number 11. Executives at the Japan headquarters of their label, Epic, took note and decided to release Cheap Trick at Budokan, a live document of the group\u2019s recent spring concerts at the Tokyo arena.<\/p>\n

That, in turn, gave \u201cSurrender\u201d a boost months later when At Budokan was released in the U.S., in February 1979. The album had a slow-burn success, thanks to the radio hits \u201cI Want You to Want Me\u201d and the group\u2019s cover of the Fats Domino hit \u201cAin\u2019t That a Shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, Werman and Cheap Trick were ready to release Dream Police, the group\u2019s fourth studio album. The record had been completed for months but was left on the shelf while At Budokan rode the charts, setting the stage for what would be the group\u2019s most commercially successful studio album.<\/p>\n

Dream Police was the perfect statement of Cheap Trick\u2019s musical intentions, featuring longer songs with more ambitious production, including orchestrations. And for the album\u2019s title track, Werman once again took inspiration from the Who\u2019s \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat synthesizer riff turned up again in the song \u2018Dream Police,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cIt was almost the same thing, and was done in half-time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also featured actual string players rather than a synthesizer.<\/p>\n

\u201cRick did a real string chart for \u2018Dream Police,\u2019\u201d Werman confirms. \u201cI think that\u2019s the only time we used real strings on any song, except I used double cello on \u2018Auf Wiedersehen,\u2019 to double the bass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat album was a big deal. Initially, Heaven Tonight sold about seven or eight hundred thousand, which was a big improvement over its predecessor, In Color, which had sold about three hundred thousand copies. Then Dream Police sold a little over a million, so we were on the way up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minimalism met rock in 1972 when Pete Townshend wrote \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley.\u201d The song\u2019s cyclic, arpeggiating riff was inspired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-322808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}