"The Cheater" is 2 minutes and 39 seconds, has a
tempo of 136 beats per minute. The intro begins in
E-flat minor, with the verses beginning in the key of
G-flat major, changing to
G major and again to
A-flat major throughout the song, with the chorus ending in
F minor, with an A-flat major chord in the guitar. Walter Scott's vocals range from Eb to C. On the B-side is a song titled "Try Me Baby." The content of the song describes the story of a man, known as 'the cheater' who will 'build up' a relationship with someone's significant other before 'letting them down' by lying, betraying and mistreating them, a notorious 'fool-hearted clown' who is apparently warned about by people every day to the extent where people are staying in their houses. Eventually, the cheater steals the narrator's lover and the narrator is determined to get her back. The narrator foresees a day that the cheater finds true love of his own before it all falls apart, and the people who find out are laughing and making fun of him. "The Cheater" was the In-Men's first and only hit. They had planned to tour in
Australia, but there were draft deferment rules in the midst of the
Vietnam War that prevented them from doing so. The manager, Mel Friedman had an agenda of his own that did not involve the band, and thus the band was forcefully split apart from each other following two singles that scraped the pit of the Hot 100, "The Teaser" and a cover of
The Beatles' "
Drive My Car." Nearly 20 years after their dissolution, the band was preparing for a big reunion concert before Walter Scott mysteriously disappeared in December 1983. Scott was tied up, shot in the back, and thrown into a
cistern where his decomposed body was finally found in 1987. Eventually, the boyfriend of Scott's second wife was found guilty of his murder, as well as his own wife's, and was given two life sentences. It was seen by many as a cruel irony that saw Scott meeting his untimely end in the way that he did, considering the context of The Cheater. The song was parodied by
Blowfly's as "The Eater", which was featured on his 1973 album
The Weird World of Blowfly. == Reception and chart success ==