Tag: Auf Wiedersehen

My Sunday Song – “Auf Wiedersehen” by Cheap Trick

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For My Sunday Song #319, we are discussing the song “Auf Wiedersehen” by Cheap Trick. The song is off their 1978 album ‘Heaven Tonight’ and but was not released as a single. Instead, it was the B-Side to their hit “Surrender”. The song was written by Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson and talks about a very serious subject matter.

The song is about suicide. And not the first on ‘Heaven Tonight” because the title song is also about suicide. “Auf Wiedersehen” is actually German for “Goodbye” which is appropriate. The lyrics also say goodbye in Spanish and Japanese. The lyrics give a nod to Bob Dylan’s song “All Along the Watchtower” with “You feel that life is a joke”. The song isn’t trying to talk the person out of committing suicide. It is simply saying goodbye in a not so kind way.

It is a pretty heavy song both lyrically and musically and is so upbeat and face paced that you can’t help but enjoy it despite its subject matter. The guitar riffs on this one by Nielsen are some of his best on the album. Robin attacks the vocals with an aggressive tone that is both abrasive and then he can turn it around and be kinda sweet. Towards the end, he seems batshit crazy and that he has completely lost it. It is a perfect combination of the rawness from the first album mixed with the power pop of the second.

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Cheap Trick – ‘Out To Get You! Live 1977’ (2020) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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After 2 Record Store Releases in a row up for review, we are now on our third in a row and 6 total RSD releases from this band and all fantastic. Cheap Trick’s ‘Out to Get You! Live 1977’ is pretty freaking cool. This was very early on between the debut album and only months away from the release of their second album, In Color, which came out 3 months later. We get basically every song from those two albums (and one the crowd hadn’t even heard yet) as well as a couple from their third album (which hadn’t even been recorded or thought of yet), plus a handful of tracks that wouldn’t show up again for years.

They were hungry, energetic and fresh and yet still a little green. The release is from Record Store Day 2020 and is an exclusive release…well, not that exclusive since you can stream it but physically it is currently only available on vinyl. And there were only 4,700 on this limited release. The show is recorded over 4 performances over two days on June 3rd and 4th at The Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles and we get 22 tracks of pure and utter joy.

These four unassuming gentlemen were a cross between rockers, nerds and plain quirky looking guys. Meshed together, they were a force to be reckoned with. The albums didn’t necessarily match the power that came from the stage and when you saw them, you had no idea the type of music that would flow from them. In 1977, this was pre-Budokan so the world wasn’t truly hip on them yet, but these performances captured here let us know that we had one of America’s greatest bands waiting to blow up on the world…and they did just that.

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Cheap Trick – ‘At Budokan: The Complete Concert’ (1998) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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After three labels on three different albums, things weren’t going great for Cheap Trick. Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos needed to rebuild and find themselves again. One way they did this was by Epic Records re-releasing their stellar live album ‘At Budokan’, but this time they did a 2 CD release of the entire concert. All 19 tracks in order just as one done in the concert the show was from back in 1978. It was the 20th Anniversary of the original album and time to show the fans what all the fuss was about once again but in glorious full setlist detail.

The album came out on April 8, 1998 which was only 20 short days from the release of the official album which makes me wonder why they didn’t just wait a few more weeks. But what do I know. The concert was completely remastered and fully restored with all the tracks. And since we’ve already been through the original album track by track, we will focus on only the songs that were not included on the original.

That means we will kick things off with “ELO Kiddies” from their 1977 debut album. Live the song has even more of the band’s early punk aggression. It sounds rich and full and ready to rock your face off. They go straight in to the Terry Reid cover of “Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace” also from their first album. Tom Petersson starts it off on bass and he gives us a little solo rather than the normal blues guitar opening. We get a two minute instrumental instrumental before the song really gets going. The song rocks more than before and Robin sounds as great as ever.

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Cheap Trick – ‘Heaven Tonight’ (1978) – Album Review (The Cheap Trick Collection Series)

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The band finally started to catch on to the world with the release of their third album, “Heaven Tonight”. The album was released on April 24, 1978 and what is interesting is four days later they were touring Japan and played at a little arena called Nippon Budokan and we will get to that story in the next review. First, we need to talk this album. The band’s third album, which in some circles is considered the best, but it is way too early to make that call. This one though does bring the best of the first two albums in to focus. It has some of the first albums raw sound and then it takes some of the power pop sounds of the second and makes a pretty damn fine combination. The album did well as it charted at #48 on the Billboard Charts and going Gold a year later. By 1995, it has since been certified Platinum.

There are also two big firsts on this album. The first is they finally had a single chart with “Surrender” as it went to #62 on the Billboard Hot 100. The other first is more of a recording history fact in that this is the first recording to ever feature a 12-String Bass…yep…that is a right…12 strings. Not the wimpy-ass 4 string bass, nope four strings are for pussies. Only bad ass bass players play a 12 String bass!! Okay, I have no idea if that is true, but it sounds good…to me at least.

This is also the second album in a row to feature only Robin Zander and Tom Petersson on the cover similar to ‘In Color’. Based on the cover, it looks like a standard background, but when you flip it over you see Rick Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos standing in bathroom. Yes, great place for a group photo. As a result, the record company wanted to call the album ‘American Standard’ as that is a very popular brand of plumbing supplies. Thankfully, that was nixed and they went with the ‘Heaven Tonight’ title.

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