Rocktober First Tracks Song #10: "Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways

Back in the '70s, rock producer Kim Fowley noticed there was a dearth of all-female rock groups.  He decided to assemble a group of young women who could rock, and so The Runaways were born.  Through auditions and happenstance, and after a few lineup shifts, the "classic" lineup of Cherie Currie on lead vocals, Joan Jett on rhythm guitar, Sandy West on drums, Lita Ford on lead guitar, and Jackie Fox on bass came together.  Not a single one of them was yet 18 when they released their self-titled debut album in March 1976, and it didn't exactly set the world on fire, only reaching #194 on the Billboard album chart.

The song "Cherry Bomb" was the band's first single, and it was quickly written by Jett and Fowley for Currie's audition for the band when the band couldn't play the song that Currie had chosen for the audition.  The song is a short but powerful hard rock song with a driving beat and street smart lyrics, punctuated by Currie's husky vocals during the verses that unleashes in the choruses. 

Though the song didn't crack the Billboard Hot 100, it was highly influential and regarded, landing at #52 on VH1 100 Greatest Hard Rock Songs list.  And for many of us younger Gen Xers, we may have heard it for the first time while watching Dazed and Confused.  The Runaways only put out a couple more albums before officially breaking up in early 1979.  Of course, Jett went on to a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career as a solo artist and leader of The Blackhearts.  Ford went on to a successful solo career.  West formed her own band and became a drum teacher before succumbing to lung cancer in 2006 at the age of 47.  Currie and her twin sister Marie formed a band and had a minor hit before becoming a drug counselor, dabbling in acting, marrying (and divorcing) Airplane star Robert Hays, and eventually becoming a chainsaw wood carving artist.  Fox earned a BA with honors from UCLA and her JD from Harvard (where Barack Obama was one of her classmates), becoming an entertainment lawyer.

The Runaways' influence can't be understated, as they paved the way for pretty much every all-female rock band that followed them, from The Bangles (whose bassist Michael Steele, then known as Micki Steele, was The Runaways' original bassist) to The Go-Go's to Vixen to L7 to The Donnas to many more.