The Great Northern Songbook - 5. Teenage Kicks

On 15 June 1978, The Undertones were making it happen at Wizard Sound Studios in Belfast. Their mission was to record four tracks for the Good Vibrations label and the budget was £200. The booking had come from Terri Hooley, owner of the Good Vibes Record shop who had already released three singles from local acts. While all of the UK companies had rejected the band's first demo, Hooley had taken the chance. This was partly due to the persistence of a mutual friend from Derry, Bernie McAnaney, and Terri famously made his decision while crossing the road on the way to Lavery's Gin Palace.

This took place just as the band was breaking up, and singer Feargal Sharkey had to be persuaded to rejoin for the sessions. At the time, The Undertones thought that the EP would be their final statement, a piece of plastic that would leave some kind of modest legacy.

The tapes rolled and the tracks were sharply delivered. There was 'True Confessions', which demonstrated the band's love of Sixties garage bands. Likewise with 'Emergency Cases' and its driving rhythm and blues. There was also a tune called 'Smarter Than You', which namechecked a seminal glam-punk combo, the New York Dolls.

The fourth track was presented with a bit of reluctance. It was called 'Teenage Kicks' and it had been written by John O' Neill in the summer of 1977. It was partly inspired by the classic girl groups like the Shangri Las, and when the band started to play it at the Casbah club in Derry, one of the locals called it their "big song". The Undertones were so cool that they seriously considered not recording the song because they worried about sounding commercial.

Thankfully they overcame this issue and so one of the very greatest songs was captured in its raw state. John and Damien O'Neill kept pushing up the volume of their guitars until the sound was a perfect fuzz. Mickey Bradley played the bass and Billy Doherty provided the signature drum intro. Meantime Feargal Sharkey delivered this wounded, quivering vocal, finding the loneliness and the heartache at the centre of the lyric.

Strangely though, the EP wasn't warmly received in London. Terri Hooley and other friends of the band failed to interest the big companies. But there was one sympathetic soul out there. The Radio 1 broadcaster John Peel had already taken note of the band's potential and when he heard 'Teenage Ticks', he was in raptures and in tears. His standard marking system was to give a record a certain number of stars out of five. He gave 'Teenage Kicks' 28 stars.

On 9 September, he played all four tracks on his show. Later, he announced, "Isn't that the most wonderful record you've ever heard?" He kept returning to the record on subsequent shows and even encouraged other DJs to do likewise. He would carefully arrange to follow the song, back-to-back with another record, because he was so emotionally moved by the song, and he wanted time to compose himself. He called it "the record by which all others must be judged".

Sire Records, home to The Ramones and Talking Heads, signed the band and helped to get them onto Top Of The Pops and into the UK charts. The Undertones would release many other great records, but 'Teenage Kicks' was the one that would be covered by REM and Green Day, by The Raconteurs and Jedward. And of course the lyric "Teenage dreams, so hard to beat", was inscribed on John Peel's headstone. A fitting epitaph indeed.