Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)

Ten glam-metal ballads of the '80s

by Lorenzo Pagani

The origins of the power-ballad heavy can be traced back to songs like "Child In Time" by Deep Purple (1970) and "Stairway To Heaven" by Led Zeppelin (1971), though the themes and sound of these two classics still have little in common with the genre that would run rampant in the following decade. Things start to change with Kiss's "Beth" (from "Destroyer", 1976), especially when it comes to the lyrics: “Beth I know you’re lonely/ And I hope you’ll be alright/ Cause me and the boys will be playing all night”.

Three years later, Germany's Scorpions upped the ante, borrowing a few notes from Lynyrd Skynyrd for the powerful "Always Somewhere": “I call your number the line ain’t free I like to tell you come to me/ A night without you seems like a lost dream/ Love I can’t tell you how I feel”.

But it would take the eighties for radio airplay to fill up with hits built on an almost identical structure (intro/verse+chorus (x 2)/solo/bridge/chorus), and MTV schedules with glossy, glamour-filled videos starring rockers with teased hair and heavy make-up.

So here's a representative (though not exhaustive) list of ten songs recorded during the decade of hedonism:

Twisted Sister – The Price (1984)

"Stay Hungry" is only Twisted Sister's third studio album, but by 1984 the Long Island band had already been around for a while, playing the smoky clubs of the "Big Apple" since 1972, fronted from 1976 onward by the charismatic Dee Snider.

The album contains their two biggest hits, the rollicking "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock", but also this intense ballad, where being away from loved ones is described as the price to pay for a life of tours and long studio sessions; essentially, the same theme as the aforementioned "Beth", which we'll find again the following year in Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home".

Motley Crue – Home Sweet Home (1985)

The piano notes, the stage assembled in time-lapse, the camera following the four L.A. troublemakers right up onto the stage: everything about this hit is iconic, starting with the video, which in 1985 paved the way for countless imitators, boosted by heavy MTV rotation and the huge success of "Theatre Of Pain", the album it comes from.

Among its most illustrious heirs, a few years later, we'll find Guns n' Roses' "November Rain", whose opening seems to have been directly inspired by this very song, and which narrowly misses out on inclusion in this article, being from 1991 - the same year Motley would release a new version of "Home Sweet Home" itself (with a new video) for the compilation "Decade Of Decadence".

Guns N' Roses – Patience (1988)

And here are the Guns, riding higher than ever these days thanks to the (partial) reunion of the "classic" lineup.

"Patience", taken from the "acoustic side" of their second album "Lies", is a classic tale of "broken hearts" (it's unclear whether it's dedicated to the singer's ex-wife or to Izzy Stradlin's ex).

The mood, helped along by the whistled melody in the intro, is particularly melancholic: the video's evocative atmosphere is also striking, at times almost prophetic in the scenes where Axl watches old footage of the band alone in a hotel room.

Dokken – Walk Away (1988)

Dan Dokken & co. came to "pop-metal" somewhat sideways: active since the late '70s, they emerged from the NWOBHM scene, and their sound is on average "harder" and "faster" than the typical band in this vein; that said, they were no strangers to ballads, thanks in part to an innate gift for a good melody - proof of which is this powerful "Walk Away", which closes out, as a previously unreleased track, the 1988 live album "Beast From The East", released at the peak of their fame.

Indeed, the band's track record at that point was impressive: among other things, they had three platinum albums (which in the US means three million copies sold) and a song on the soundtrack of "Nightmare 3".

Cinderella – Coming Home (1988)

"Long Cold Winter", Cinderella's second album, is a great blues-tinged heavy metal record, and it features not one but two ballads: one gives this feature its title - and could be considered something of an archetype of the genre - while the other is this more blues-inflected "Coming Home", helped along by the presence of a twelve-string guitar.

The lyrics too represent something of a variation on the theme: the rockstar is coming home and promises fireworks for his beloved: "Are you tough enough for my love?"

White Lion – When The Children Cry (1989)

Born out of a New York meeting between Danish singer Michael "Mike Tramp" Trempenau and guitarist Vito Bratta, of clear Italian descent, White Lion also skirted the edges of the glam scene without ever fully embracing its conventions.

While visually they made ample use of teased hair and glittering outfits, their "socially conscious lyrics" were a genuine anomaly - as in the case of this ballad, which, rather than being dedicated to whichever girl happened to be around, is instead a strongly anti-militarist song of social protest.

Kiss – Forever (1989)

"Acoustic" and without make-up: the late-Nineties reunion and the return to their "second identities" were still a long way off for the Kiss of "Hot In The Shade", an album recorded with a lineup that included - alongside the ever-present Stanley and Simmons - guitarist Bruce Kulick and drummer Eric Carr.

Stripped of the "special effects" and pyrotechnic lighting, the band's "heart" comes through, aided in the songwriting by a ballad expert like Michael Bolton (with whom Kulick had played before joining Kiss), resulting in a successful declaration of love: "I see my future when I look in your eyes…"

Alice Cooper – Poison (1989)

Good old (so to speak) Vincent Furnier was another forerunner of the genre, having recorded hits in the '70s such as "Only Women Bleed" or "I Never Cry" - songs that, truth be told, were more nuanced than the ones covered in this feature, especially in terms of their lyrics.

To get an Alice Cooper "love song", we have to wait until the late Eighties and his return to the scene after the dark years of alcoholism, though, with Alice involved, it could only ever be the story of a "deadly embrace".

One of the singles taken from the album "Trash", co-written with Desmond Child, the successful songwriter whose résumé includes tracks written for Aerosmith and Bon Jovi, but also for pop stars like Cher or Ricky Martin.

Skid Row – 18 and life (1989)

A murder-ballad taken from the debut album of this American band, from New Jersey to be exact - the same state that gave us the very famous Jon Bon Jovi, who helped "launch" the group thanks to a pact he'd made a few years earlier with his longtime friend Dave Sabo, guitarist for Skid Row.

Released as the glam-metal era was winding down, it was a genuine blockbuster debut, eventually reaching five-times platinum status.

Since the mid-Nineties, Sebastian Bach and the rest of the band have gone their separate ways, but who knows - maybe the "reunion wind" will blow Skid Row's way too: earlier this year the blond frontman made a statement via tweet declaring himself willing to "bury the hatchet" (the split is said to have originated in a dispute over whether or not to open for a Kiss tour).

L.A. Guns – Ballad Of Jayne (1989)

This song is the biggest hit of an excellent band that history has cast in the role of outsider. Tied by more than just their name to that other band discussed above, L.A. Guns are the brainchild of guitarist Tracii Guns and have counted Axl Rose himself among their ranks, just as Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner were briefly part of Guns N' Roses before being replaced by Slash and Steven Adler respectively.

The melancholic and evocative "Ballad Of Jayne" appears to be dedicated to Jayne Mansfield, the American actress who died tragically in a car accident in the late Sixties.

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Lorenzo Pagani, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition