• Writer: Rick Nielsen
• Producer: Tom Werman
• Recorded: Fall 1976 and January 1977 in New York City
• Released: Fall 1977
• Players:
  Robin Zander — vocals, guitar
  Rick Nielsen — guitar, vocals
  Tom Petersson — bass, vocals
  Bun E. Carlos — drums
• Album: In Color (Epic, 1977)
• Also On:
  At Budokan (Epic, 1979)
  The Greatest Hits (Epic, 1991)
  At Budokan: The Complete Concert (Epic/Legacy, 1998)
• Cheap Trick formed in 1973 in Rockford, Illinois.
• Guitarist Rick Nielsen, bassist Tom Petersson, and drummer Bun E. Carlos had previously worked together in a band called Fuse, which released an album in 1970.
• “I Want You To Want Me” was among the tracks considered for Cheap Trick’s 1977 debut album, but it was put aside and resurrected for their second album, In Color. The original recording of the song is included in the boxed set Sex America Cheap Trick.
• In contrast to the original, the In Color version of the song was fleshed out with honky-tonk piano and other slick production touches.
• Petersson has called “I Want You To Want Me” “a parody of a hit single. It sounds like a single, but it was meant in a different way.”
• The song didn’t hit, however, until a live version from At Budokan was released in 1979.
• That rendition was the group’s first Top 10 hit, peaking at Number Seven on the Billboard Hot 100. It also hit Number 29 in the U.K.
• The In Color album reached Number 73 on the Billboard 200 and eventually went gold.
• At Budokan, on the other hand, was a smash hit, and has sold well over three million copies.

FAST FORWARD:

• Cheap Trick continues to record and tour, and the group has been cited as an influence by modern rockers such as Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder and members of Smashing Pumpkins, who have joined Cheap Trick on stage.

Cheap Trick played the Hollywood Bowl this summer and performed a tribute to the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, playing it in its entirety with guest singers.