In 1988, Poison scored their first No.1. single, and it was with a ballad. The group hit the top of the charts with “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”. On their sophomore Open Up and Say… Ahh! album, the song was written by band members Bret Michaels, C.C. DeVille, Bobby Dall, and Rikki Rockett.
A song about a broken heart, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” says, “We both lie silently still in the dead of the night / Although we both lie close together / We feel miles apart inside / Was it something I said or something I did? / Did my words not come out right? / Though I tried not to hurt you / Though I tried / But I guess that’s why they say / Every rose has its thorn / Just like every night has its dawn / Just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song / Every rose has its thorn.”
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A departure for Poison, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” comes after they already had moderate hits with uptempo tunes like “Talk Dirty To Me”, “Nothin’ But A Good Time”, and others. Surprisingly, although “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” became a three-week No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, it got its start in an entirely different genre first. Before any pop or rock stations added “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”, a Dallas country station first played the heartbreaking tune.
The Surprising Success of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” by Poison
Not only did “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” start at country radio, but it also became a hit in multiple genres, at a time when that was anything but common.
“This was back before anyone thought about a crossover,” Michaels tells Billboard. “ We had ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ at No. 1 pop, No. 1 rock, and Top 40 country, which was unheard of. The doors opened then because people knew I loved my southern rock and my country music. They knew that I knew a lot about it. I had come to Nashville a lot. So there was never any resistance.
” The toughest thing is that you’ve got a lot of great singers and songwriters that are there,” he continues. “So to break into the Top 40 is tough — not because there’s resistance, but because there’s a lot of talent. When you’re going to play in the big leagues, it’s not supposed to come easy.”
The success of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” is a happy ending to what started as a sad story. Michaels was inspired to write “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” when he called his girlfriend while on the road and heard another man’s voice in the background.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
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