A band made up of Americans and Brits who reasoned that because of their composite membership, no matter where they went they would be foreigners, Foreigner is the successful debut album from the same band, a cover whose six world-weary men standing and looking towards the audience with their suitcases looks ready to travel, and indeed they were. This would be the first of six consecutive hit albums for Foreigner, and an album that sprang fully formed despite being a debut album, largely because the band had paid its dues in the past and was ready to rock. And now, for a track by track review:

Feels Like The First Time: It is highly telling that the first song on the first album by the band Foreigner is a song called “Feels Like The First Time.” The song is simultaneously knowing and entirely appropriate in that context, a rolicking beginning to a career that would have a lot to say about love and sex, and the comparison of the high of performing and success in pop music to the high that people supposedly have when lovemaking (I speak as someone who is not well-versed in such matters, on the authority of others).

Cold As Ice: Probably my favorite song by the band, this particular song, another early hit from Foreigner, has more of a theatrical vibe to it with its pulsing synths, about an emotionally withdrawn partner who happens to be gold digger. The fact that the mood of the song, icy in its execution, matches the title and content of the lyrics, only makes the song that much better. The menace and threat of the song, when combined with its feel, puts it firmly in the canon of guilty pleasure glam rock, a song any band would be proud of. It is only a shame that this was a direction that the band didn’t seem to follow in its future.

Starrider: A sensitive and touching album track with lovely dulcimer touches and at least three-part vocal harmonies, this is a song that gives the lie to the belief that Foreigner saved all of their excellent touches for their hit singles. This is the sort of song that would not have been out of place on a Moody Blues album like Seventh Sojourn, and yet it came from a band making their debut album, a stunningly precocious effort. Again, this is a song that any band would be proud to have, and the sort of deep album cut that would have made an excellent song for performance in a concert, which it probably was, often.

Headknocker: This song, with its repeated chorus and its driving rock beat, with that smooth late ’70’s groove, is the sort of song that would be the first of many songs about roughneck blue-collar racing and fighting enthusiasts who are hot-blooded and rev it on the red line, to give but two examples. This is a clear example of a song that belongs to its time and also demonstrates one of the characteristic paths of songwriting for the band as a whole. Again, this is a fairly fully-formed effort for a new band.

The Damage Is Done: With its syncopated driving guitar beat and its plaintive tone about a relationship gone bad, this is the sort of song that, again, would presage many future Foreigner songs. Lovely and touching mid-tempo songs with a blend of ballad and rock elements always have a place in my own music collection. A song that compares the damage done in a dysfunctional relationship to matters that would end up in a civil court before a judge, this song is an inventive and melodic take on a common problem for too many of us in life.

Long, Long Way From Home: A moderate hit when this album came out, this is a song that not only relates to the existential loneliness of a band that was far from home no matter where they are, but is also a song I can definitely relate to personally, at least that part of it. The song itself deals with being a long way from home, and yet trying to find some sort of love and intimacy anyway, despite the loneliness of the road. This song is emblematic of a problem that bands tend to have when traveling, and that is the human need for love and intimacy combined with the temptations that come from being far from loved ones at home.

Woman Oh Woman: This is a beautiful album track dealing with a dysfunctional relationship of someone the author considers a woman, and not a girl, but probably someone who sits close to the boundary between the two. For whatever reason, and there are many possible ones, as this song does not go into gory details, the song tells the simple story of a love gone wrong that is nothing like it is supposed to be. That is, sadly, something that is all too common in this life.

At War With The World: Another song that plays to the “foreigner” idea of the band, this is a song that makes a lot of references to the desire of the band to be free and its feeling of being cut off from any kind of national aid or alliance because of the band’s multi-national makeup. With a driving and insistent beat and direct and blunt lyrics, this is a song that reflects a feeling of hostility towards the world, a strikingly defensive tone for a popular band to take up at the beginning of their career, and the sort of mood that might have been off-putting to the critics who would soon make war on this immensely talented and successful band.

Fool For You Anyway: This song is a competently done bluesy rock song sung with a slight falsetto about that most common of situations that a rock band laments, and that is being involved with a disloyal and treacherous lady who the narrator is a fool for anyway. Being fools for love is not only a lamentably common fate for people, but it happens to be something that people sing about fairly often as well, an example of one of those vicious circles by which people create art out of their lives in a way that then justifies the failings of others in similar situations.

I Need You: With its pleading title and its driving rock ballad sound, this song demonstrates the solid top-to-bottom strength of Foreigner’s debut album, which continues a frequent concern of longing for love that permeates this album (and many future albums from this band), and closes the original album, as the remastered 2002 version, which this is, includes four demo bonus tracks, but the original album ended with this excellent song which pointed to the band’s future work.

Feels Like The First Time (Demo): The first additional demo included, this demo is pretty similar to the released version, except being a little more sparse in its instrumentation and with slightly less impressive lead and backup vocals. Still, it’s a pretty superb demo, and also evidence of the refinement that took place in the studio.

Woman Oh Woman (Demo): This demo, which is a lot more of a spare acoustic ballad in the demo, is evidence of the sort of rocking that was done in the studio to flesh out what was originally a lovely but somewhat delicate demo. Delicate was not what the band was going for in their debut album, after all.

At War With The World (Demo): In contrast to the previous song, this song had its driving and hard-rocking sound from the demo onward. The demo was pretty similar to the final song, if a bit less tight in the vocals, and an example of a song that was, like the band, pretty fully formed from the beginning.

Take Me To Your Leader (Demo): The only additional demo track included on the extended version of the album that did not make the original album, this album manages to connect with a couple of the dominant concerns of the album, the longing and need of the narrator of the song for love, the reference to courts and making a case for the narrator’s position in the midst of deception and playing games on the part of the narrator’s partner, and the cliche that aliens, the quintessential foreigners, would say “Take Me To Your Leader” upon arriving at earth, which manages to up the ante that foreigner would not only consider themselves foreigners, but also willing to compare themselves to aliens, a highly intriguing rhetorical ploy.

Foreigner, by Foreigner, is a debut album that earned its success. It signaled the arrival of a band that straddled the world between driving rock songs and sensitive ballads aimed at radios and hearts, with a sound that was able to succeed in massively successful arena tours. Armed with a defensive tone and a readiness to enter into combat of words and law with others, the band showed itself fairly cynical from the beginning, but cynical with a streak of earnest sentimentality that continued through their career. This is an example of an accomplished debut album that manages to demonstrate exactly where a band is going to go, and was successful enough to ensure that the band would follow most of the threads started here album after album. This album may have been the first time, but it was not the last time, that Foreigner’s success would both please fans and seemingly confound critics.