Who recorded it first
I Love Rock 'n' Roll
Not a Joan Jett original — a 1975 Arrows song
Almost everyone takes ‘I Love Rock ’n’ Roll’ for a Joan Jett original, but Jett’s 1982 hit is a cover. The song was written by Alan Merrill (with a co-writing credit to Jake Hooker) and first recorded by their band The Arrows in 1975, released as a B-side on RAK Records. Jett saw The Arrows perform it on British television, and covered it seven years later.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Recorded and released in 1975 — first issued as the B-side of ‘Broken Down Heart’, then flipped to the A-side on later pressings
Charted Did not register as a chart hit; the band pushed it instead on their own weekly UK television series
Hear The Arrows's original recording, seven years before Joan Jett youtube.com · Arrows artist channel — provided to YouTube by Warner Music Group Then compare Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ 1981 recording, released as a single in January 1982 — seven weeks at No. 1 and the version that buried the Arrows’ original. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated upload on the “Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Topic” channel: “Provided to YouTube by Virgin Music Group”, ℗ 1981 Blackheart Records Group Inc. / Seeker Music, “Released on: 1981-11-18”. Runtime 175s against the MusicBrainz recording with the same 1981-11-18 first-release date at 175,173ms — an exact match. Worth flagging: the official artist-channel “Official Video” upload runs 221s, 46s over the studio master and matching a 2010-dated MusicBrainz entry instead, so it would have passed the uploader check while being the wrong record. I rejected it on duration.How we traced it
The song was written by Alan Merrill, the American lead singer and bassist of the London-based glam band The Arrows, in 1975 while he was living in Chelsea; a co-writing credit went to bandmate Jake Hooker Wikipedia ↗.
The Arrows recorded it first, in 1975 for RAK Records. It started life as a B-side before being flipped to the A-side, and the band performed it on their own ITV series — which is where it found its most important listener Wikipedia ↗.
Joan Jett saw The Arrows play it on British television in 1976 while she was touring England with The Runaways. She recorded her own version with the Blackhearts in 1981; released in January 1982, it went to No. 1 for seven weeks and eclipsed the original so completely that most listeners now assume she wrote it Wikipedia ↗.
Wikipedia — The Arrows original and the Joan Jett coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
The attribution problem
This is the cleanest kind of music misattribution: nothing about Joan Jett’s record is wrong or fake. The only error is believing she originated it — a 1982 cover mistaken for the source.
‘It’s a Joan Jett song’
Jett’s 1982 version is a cover. The song was written and recorded seven years earlier, in 1975, by The Arrows the history ↗.
The Arrows, 1975
Released as a B-side on RAK Records, it was never a hit in the band’s hands — which is exactly why the cover could eclipse it so completely. There was no famous original standing in the way.
Alan Merrill & Jake Hooker
Merrill wrote the song and sang the original; Hooker took a co-writing credit. Both were members of The Arrows, and neither is the performer the public associates with the song. Authorship and fame belong to different people here.
Written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker, first recorded by The Arrows in 1975, and made famous — but not originated — by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts in 1982 the record ↗.
Context
Why the cover ate the original
A cover eclipses its original most completely when the original never had its moment. The Arrows’ ‘I Love Rock ’n’ Roll’ went out as a B-side in 1975 and never charted as a single; there was no hit record occupying the public’s memory, so when Joan Jett’s version arrived it simply became the version, with nothing to displace.
The irony is that the original was not lost so much as broadcast and forgotten: The Arrows played it on their own ITV series, and that is precisely where Joan Jett first heard it. The cover that erased the original was only possible because Jett had been carrying the song around since watching the band perform it years before.
The creators, in order
- Alan Merrill writes the song in London, 1975, and shares the credit with Jake Hooker.
- The Arrows record it, 1975; released as a B-side on RAK Records; it is not a hit single.
- The band performs it on their weekly ITV show, where Joan Jett sees it in 1976.
- Jett records her version with the Blackhearts in 1981.
- Released January 1982 → US No. 1 for seven weeks; the 1975 original fades from public memory.
The cover erased the original only because the writer’s band had quietly played it on television first.