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  1. Tracks
  2. Cheap Trick
  3. Surrender

SINGLE

Cheap Trick

Surrender

Release date: 26th May 1978

Spotify More on Cheap Trick

About This Track

Released in June 1978 from the album 'Heaven Tonight', 'Surrender' became the first Cheap Trick single to enter the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 62. The track also opens the album and found particular success in Japan. The song adopts the perspective of a teenager reconciling parental warnings with the discovery that his mother and father are more complicated than he assumed. Cheap Trick frame the realisation as comic rather than traumatic: the narrator finds his parents rolling on the couch with Kiss records out, a moment of generational overlap that reframes their seeming strangeness. The chorus insists 'mommy's all right, daddy's all right', a reassurance delivered with enough repetition to suggest the speaker is convincing himself as much as anyone else. The lyric moves from maternal caution about disease and the father's invocation of his wife's wartime service in the Philippines to a final verse that collapses the distance between generations entirely. What reads as weird becomes merely human.

"Surrender" is a single by Cheap Trick, released 26th May 1978. Full lyrics are available below.

About the Artist

Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick

Lyrics

Surrender

Mother told me
Yes, she told me, I'd meet girls like you
She also told me
"Stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch"
Just the other day I heard of a soldier's falling off
Some Indonesian junk that's going 'round

Mommy's all right
Daddy's all right
They just seem a little weird
Surrender, surrender
But don't give yourself away

Father says, "Your mother's right, she's really up on things
Before we married mommy served in the WACs in the Philippines"
Now I had heard the WACs recruited old maids for the war
But mommy isn't one of those
I've known her all these years

Mommy's all right
Daddy's all right
They just seem a little weird
Surrender, surrender
But don't give yourself away

Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year?
Every time I got to thinking where'd they disappear?
Then I woke up, mom and dad are rolling on the couch
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out

Mommy's all right
Daddy's all right
They just seem a little weird
Surrender, surrender
But don't give yourself away
Away
Away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away
Surrender, surrender (mommy's all right, daddy's all right)
But don't give yourself away...

Lyrics provided by LRCLIB

View full lyrics page →

Track details

Surrender

1978Single
Listen
Release year
1978

More from Cheap Trick

Albums & EPs

The Albini Sessions
2022
Ain't That A Shame?
2022
Out To Get You! (Live 1977)
2020
On Top Of The World - 1978 Live Broadcast
2014

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  • Heaven TonightAin't That A Shame?
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  • Need Your LoveAin't That A Shame?
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  • On Top Of The WorldAin't That A Shame?
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  • You're All TalkThe Albini Sessions
    4:30
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    5:04
  • The PartyIn Another World
  • Final DaysIn Another World
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  • Another World (Reprise)In Another World
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    • View all tracks by Cheap Trick →

    Credits

    Production & Engineering

    Writer
    Rick Nielsen
    Producer
    Tom Werman
    Drums
    Bun E. Carlos
    Background Vocals
    Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson
    Lead Vocals
    Robin Zander
    Rhythm Guitar
    Robin Zander
    Synthesizer
    Jai Winding
    Tie-In
    Guardians of the Galaxy
    READ MORE ABOUT CHEAP TRICKREAD MORE ABOUT CHEAP TRICK
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