In 1976, The Runaways stormed onto the music scene. Just as the disco craze was beginning to take over, producer Kim Fowley’s curated all-female teen punk band released the hard-rocking rebellion song “Cherry Bomb.”
With lyrics such as “Can't stay at home, can't stay in school” and “Hello world I'm your wild girl,’ “Cherry Bomb” was an anthem for teen defiance and independence. The song hit No. 106 on the Billboard charts on Aug. 7, 1976, and received a boost when it was featured in the TV movie Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway starring Eve Plumb that fall.
Admittedly, not everyone understood The Runaways. “Back in 1976, people didn’t know what to make of The Runaways,” guitarist Lita Ford told Guitar World. “They labeled us as teenage jailbait or punk rock. I didn’t care about labels. Just give me my guitar. I just wanted to play.”
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The Runaways featured Ford, as well as Cherie Currie on vocals, Joan Jett (guitar), Jackie Fox (bass), and Sandy West (drums). But it was “Cherry Bomb” that helped make the band’s original lineup happen.
In an interview shared by WRAL, Jett, who was just 16 when she co-founded The Runaways with Fowley and West, revealed the group’s signature song was written on the spot.
“Cherie Currie showed up to audition, and she had no song to sing. So Kim said, ‘We’re going to write you a song.’ Kim and I went in the other room, and he said, ‘Just start playing me something, play a riff,’” Jett revealed. “I started jamming on the ‘Cherry Bomb’ riff, and he started with the chorus — ‘hello Daddy, hello Mom.’ I’d say 20, 25 minutes, we came back and said, ‘Sing this.’"“It was great to be in that creative process, happening right there for a specific person. Jett added. “But it was her representing all of us — it wasn’t just necessarily about Cherie. I was trying to represent all girls.”
Currie was grateful for the song
In the 2004 documentary Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways, Currie recalled showing up to her Runaways audition ready to perform an ill-suited Suzi Quatro song.
“Out of all the songs on the Your Mama Won’t Like Me album, I pick ‘Fever’ for Christ sakes,” she said. “I was terrified. I mean, I had sang ‘Fever’ till it was coming out my as--. So Joan walks over, and she goes, ‘So, what song did you learn?’ Of course, I say, ‘Fever.’ She just turns and looks at the girls and says, ‘Fever?’ She picks ‘Fever?’ So, anyway, since no one knew how to play ‘Fever,’ Joan and Kim wrote ‘Cherry Bomb’ on the spot for me to audition to, and that was it. I was in the band.”
Currie elaborated in an interview on theRock Talk With Mitch Lafon podcast in 2019.
"'Cherry Bomb' never would have been written had I picked a different Suzi Quatro song to do my audition with,” she shared. “I picked 'Fever', Suzi Quatro's version, to audition for the Runaways. Of course, the girls were not happy with that. And Kim Fowley … Kim was a songwriter like no one I've ever known. …And knowing Kim and how he writes — that flowed right out of his mouth, all the lyrics that he came up with for 'Cherry Bomb.’ And he wrote it for me, to audition.”
Currie expressed gratitude for the song that Fowley wrote within minutes of first seeing her that day.
“I think had I not walked into the picture, that song never would have been written. And for that to be the very first song I ever recorded with the band is super cool,” she added. "I was just about to turn 16 when I recorded that song, and I'm just very grateful. … If I could talk to that girl at 15 years old, that scared girl that was so intimidated and frightened, that, 'Hey, you know what? This is really gonna be okay. You're gonna have a great life.’”
The Runaways went on to release four albums before breaking up in 1979.
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