Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I was driving into work today and a song came on the radio, "Every Rose Has It's Thorn," by Poison.  As the opening chord hit, I felt the muscles in my forehead go lax, apparently I carry tension in those muscles rather often which doesn't bode well for wrinkles.  So what is it about this song that washed the tension out of my body with a single chord?  Here is the song and video if you need a refresher.

I was going to apologize for the video....but hey, it was the 80's, it is what it is.  Yes people really dressed like that (the mostly clothed ones at least), yes we had those hats and they were totally awesome, indeed I still have a thing for guys with rock star hair but I'm trying to quit, and of course I made it to the concert.   And it's a darn nice song.  I first heard it in 1987 on summer vacation visiting a friend in Manitoba.  I loved the song long before I could relate to what it's talking about, before any of us could...but we loved it all the same.

It was the melody, the riffs, and the energies that made our barely teenage selves love the song.  But it's something different that makes made my muscles melt now.  It's a dusk walk in Kelwood, Manitoba.  A hot, sweaty mosh pit at a general admission concert with Val 6 hours away from an impending physics final.  It's watching hours of MTV and talking endlessly with Colleen.  It's after school homework and boy talk with Jolene.  It's "cruising" music in Gravelboug, SK, late night bonfires and early morning sunrises, the unusual smell of Poison perfume (Elizabeth Taylor not the band) and cinnamon Dentyne gum that I relate to high school.  It's passing notes in class, first cars, a lot of hairspray, and picking your battles and your anthems.  It's Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Skid Row, and singing your heart out.  It's the excitement of knowing your whole life is ahead of you.  Somehow when I hear that song the years fall away, and the events of the years between then and now fade into the background.  Between the notes of the song faces play in my memory, and standing in rooms it used to play are some people we never dreamed we'd lose -- I see Sara, Mandy, and Karen in Jolene's kitchen.  A sense of a time washes through me with the chorus when our worst nightmares couldn't touch the tragic reality of the future.  Now life isn't all that bad, but back then, everything and more importantly, everyone, is safe.  There was still your whole life of wonders ahead, time to record your own hit album, break out in LA, and rock the world. 

But here we are 25 years later and things are a lot different than we imagined.  Too many people lost.  Some adventures have been better than I imagined.  A change in plans happened somewhere along the way.  It had to.  Brett Michaels now looks better in spandex than I do, I need too much sleep to tour, plus I never got around to learning guitar or doing anything remotely rock star wortht, and man I am getting old...and there's that furrow in my brow again.  In retrospect, I have to give it to Poison.  It seems that every rose does indeed have its thorn.