"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is a power ballad/rock song by
American glam rock band Poison. It was released in 1988 as the
third single from Poison's second album
Open Up And Say...Ahh!. It is the band's first and only
number-one hit in the U.S., reaching the top spot on Christmas
Eve in 1988 for three weeks (carrying over into 1989). It was a
#13 hit in the UK. "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" was named number
34 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 80's", #100 on their
"100 Greatest Love Songs" and #3 on their " Top 25 Power
Ballads" by MTV and VH1.
According to singer Bret Michaels, the recording sessions
for "Every Rose" were fraught with infighting and squabbles
between band members. "It was like, I totally thought this
would help us move forward, you know, push the envelope,
sonically," Michaels has said, "but the others were just not
into it, you know? I mean, C.C. has always been the metal rawk
one in the group, and he thought I was a fucking sell-out. He
hated playing "Every Rose"; the song is one of the reasons he
refuses to speak to me anymore. Although I think me sleeping
with his girlfriend of six years didn't help either." C.C.
Deville would later retort in the Poison biography
Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll ... & Sex & Drugs Some
More: The Poison Story, "Well that's Brett's take, okay?
And you know what, he's a cunt. That's all I have to say about
that."
Poison's lead vocalist, Bret Michaels, wrote the song in
response to a failed love affair with his then-girlfriend.
Poison had been playing at a cowboy bar called "The Ritz" in
Dallas, Texas. In an interview with VH1's Behind The Music,
Michaels said the inspiration for the song came from a night
when he was in a laundromat waiting for his clothes to dry, and
called his girlfriend on a pay phone. Michaels said he heard a
male voice in the background and was devastated; he said he
went home and wrote Every Rose Has Its Thorn as a result.
Michaels wrote the song with an acoustic guitar in a
laundromat.
Musically, the song starts quietly and features two
intricate guitar solos, one mellow and one fast. Among
guitarists, the song is notable for epitomizing the standard G
- Cadd9 progression in pop/rock. The song is also recognizable
for its reference to cowboys in the chorus, and the twang in
Bret Michaels' vocals, which give the song a country feel not
often heard in power ballads composed by glam metal bands.
When asked in
Twisted Sister: The Completed Uncensored Storyabout why
the glam metal scene came to an end, Dee Snider of Twisted
Sister said: "Hey man, it was them motherfuckin' "power
ballads", you know! Bret is gonna kill me for saying this but
"Every Rose" completely killed the metal in the pop metal scene
man. All of a sudden, all the heavy metal rock bands got rid of
their distortion pedals and went fuckin' acoustic." Twisted
Sister had previously achieved fame primarily for their
sloganeering rock anthem hit "We're Not Gonna Take It".
The music video to Every Rose was similar to those filmed
for other eighties power ballads. It features Michaels sitting
down, playing the guitar, and singing along to the song,
interspersed with black and white clips from concerts, and
color frames of a storyline that follows the song.
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" is on the following albums.
"Every Rose Has Its Thorn" became the group's first (and
only to date) number-one single on the
BillboardHot 100; it climbed to the top during the two
last weeks of 1988 and the first week of 1989.
