The Comedy of Errors: The Undertones - Teenage Kicks (16 May 1992)

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John Peel’s favourite song.  Many times over the years I’ve pondered just what was it about this 2 minute 27 second song that won Peel’s heart ahead of the millions of other tracks he heard over the course of his life and career.  His own pronouncements on the track gave little true insight.  There was the typical Peel non-sequitur that nothing could be added to or taken away from the song to make it better.  When he interviewed the band members in a documentary around the time of their Feargal Sharkey-less reformation, he declined to gush too much on camera to them but cited being drawn in by the twangy guitar as an initial hook for him, but if this was all then Duane Eddy’s Peter Gunn Theme might have been his favourite record.

Ultimately, I suspect it all comes down to the (misheard) lyric “Teenage Dreams, so hard to beat”, which as Peel requested, ended up on his tombstone.  Peel’s role on Radio 1 enabled him to continue to act like a teenager in a number of ways, not least a job involving immersion in music.  By the mid-1970s, he had become weary of a lot of what was turning up in record shops and by the couriers - “We were being bored to death without realising it” as he used to put it.  The Ramones debut album and the ensuing tidal wave of punk rock bands revitalised him through late 1976 and into 1977.  By 1978, his programme had become the place to go to hear the new three-chord wonders on the radio.  Peel had no problems with travelling on this train, but consider that for a long period of over a year his playlists were stocked with songs, of varying quality, that promoted violence and anarchy or which dealt in political themes along social and racial lines.  It was music that frightened people or brought out the bloodlust in others - though the theory is that the really dark stuff didn’t start to emerge until the post-punks got to work, which they certainly had by September 1978.

Peel maintained a sense of humour and proportion through all this, while continuing to champion both the big names and the dozens of wannabes and one-offs. By the summer of 1978, The Fall start making their first appearances on his show. Darkness, fear and the wearing of literary influences starts to loom on the horizon.  And then in the middle of all that, like a burst of sunshine in a monsoon of spit, The Undertones spring into his life.  They’re full of swagger despite the fragility of Sharkey’s vocals, their sound is muscular and they sing about something as innocent as desiring a girl.  The urgency to shag her wrapped up in sentiments which wouldn’t have been out of place 30 years earlier, “I wanna hold her, wanna hold her tight/Get teenage kicks right through the night”.  There’s no angst, anger, venom, mockery or disappointment here.  Only love, lust, joy - a zest for life’s possibilities as represented by a fanciable girl - and it sounds like a classic for the ages from the moment it begins.  In the words of Eamonn McCann, “This is a band that sounded beautiful coming from an ugly place....While many people may see their music as being something soft and mainstream, it was far from soft and mainstream in the Bogside in 1977/78.”
 Not just the Great Punk Love Song, but a Great Love Song full stop.  For Peel, it acts as the catalyst for the Bearded Perpetual Teenager to remember that life isn’t all gobbing and cynicism, but also joy and excitement.  It was a lesson Peel took to heart and it sustained him for the rest of his life.

Given how synonymous the song became with him, Peel was quite sparing in the exposure he gave to Teenage Kicks as the years went by.  It’s easy to imagine him giving it a spin every 6 months, but as the John Peel wiki shows, it was only an occasional presence each year.  The Wiki is incomplete so take the five year gap between 1982 and 1987 with a pinch of salt.  In Peel’s later years, Teenage Kicks was mostly played on the radio either for professional anniversaries, milestone birthdays or live events such as sets at Glastonbury or Sonar.  Its presence on the 16/5/92 show was to act as the signal for listeners to call Peel in order to potentially win the chance to accompany him to the final of the 1992 European Football Championships in Sweden as one of the prizes in Radio 1’s 31 Days in May extravaganza.  As always when he had to handle something outside his usual remit on his own programme, poor John was a bag of nerves and stricken with guilt about those he hadn’t chosen to answer the prize-winning question, “Where were the last European Football Championships held in 1988?”  Martin Behan, a sales rep from Dorchester, played safe with modern history and answered West Germany.  This not only won him the ticket to accompany Peel to the final, but as part of the prize they would be able to attend the official pre-match reception.  This set Peel into a further round of worry as he didn’t have a suit, which he was sure the occasion would demand.  Not having a suit in his wardrobe had caused him to pass up a recent opportunity to go to the Sony Awards.  “I know it sounds a bit of an old hippy thing but I really don’t have one.  Maybe I’ll have to buy one.  Maybe, Radio 1 will buy me one and that’ll be even better.  Martin will have a suit because he’s a sales rep.”


Video courtesy of sdd948
Lyrics copyright of John O’Neill.