Cheap Trick: Surrender

Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” was a song that didn’t get much (or perhaps any) airplay in the Huntington, WV market when it was released in June 1978. I first heard it in Columbus, OH that summer while I was hopelessly trying to make headway with a young lady I knew from there – it was a futile attempt. C'est la vie as they say in France.

I got to see Cheap Trick in concert several months later when I won a pair of tickets from WVAF in Charleston. I was actually working at another radio station in Huntington and listing to them at the time of my evening shift. It shows that I was multitasking at the young age of 22. AC/DC opened the show and I took a friend from my former job at McDonalds in South Point, Ohio to the concert. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

The song never gained widespread national attention at the time of its release but has gone into the pantheon of Cheap Trick numbers from the exposure it has received since its initial release. It has been featured in a number of films including “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”; however, it was omitted from the soundtrack. “Surrender” peaked at 63 on the Hot 100.