Few songs encapsulate the carefree emotions of youth better than The Undertones’ Teenage Kicks, the 1978 single that became iconic for a generation – even though it came from a bunch of disaffected kids from the arse-end of nowhere.
Written by guitarist John O’Neill and released by the Belfast label Good Vibrations on a four-track EP of the same name, Teenage Kicks was based on a devastatingly simple C/Am/F/G progression (played a tone higher in the key of D) which, once heard, is never forgotten.
