"Leader of Men" is a song by Canadian rock band Nickelback. Written by band members Chad Kroeger and Ryan Peake, it was featured on the band's second studio album The State in 1998. Upon the album's reissue after the band signed with Roadrunner Records, "Leader of Men" was released as the first single from The State on March 4, 2000, reaching number 11 on the Canadian Top Rock Songs, number 8 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and number 21 on the Alternative Songs chart. Both versions of the song feature on the album; the original version features as the third track, while the acoustic version is the eleventh and final track. Origin and recording Nickelback's lead vocalist and guitarist Chad Kroeger began writing "Leader of Men" as early as 1996, although it was not recorded until the band began work on its second album The State in 1998. The band's second guitarist and backing vocalist Ryan Peake is credited as a co-writer on the track. According to Kroeger, who wrote the lyrics to the song while under the influence of "magic mushrooms", many of the lines in the song are "about what you're going through when you're [high]". The song was held back for some time as the band felt that it was "not a good representation of what [they] honestly sound like", but was later considered and ultimately chosen for inclusion on the album after feedback from Peake's girlfriend, who told Kroeger that "You have to record that on the next album. It's a great song." In an analysis of "Leader of Men", University of Leeds lecturer Derek B. Scott claimed that the song "demonstrates all the hallmarks of the grunge aesthetic", outlining that it begins with "a long, brooding verse with tense, harmonically static and percussive guitar work, vocal lines low in the singer's register, and quiet drumming" before later featuring a "sudden and dramatic shift to a chorus featuring a soaring vocal in a higher tessitura, and greater volume, intensity and melodic and harmonic development". In addition to the regular recording of the track, an acoustic version of "Leader of Men" was also featured on The State; reviewing the album for AllMusic, JT Griffith claimed that the inclusion of the second version of the song "would be more impressive if the song were not so bland and still strangely familiar". Release and reception "Leader of