Rocktober Hair Band Song #7: "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake

Thirty years ago today, Whitesnake topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their anthem "Here I Go Again."  The song has a pretty interesting history.  Originally, it was released on the band's 1982 album, Saints and Sinners.  The 1982 version featured lead singer David Coverdale's former Deep Purple bandmates John Lord on keyboards and Ian Paice on drums (and some other different personnel).  While the song is generally the same, there are a few differences in the arrangement, and in the chorus, it was "like a hobo I was born to walk alone," rather than "like a drifter I was born to walk alone."  It was a minor hit in the UK (reaching #34 on the UK pop charts), but didn't make any noise on the American charts.

In 1987, the band (with an entirely new lineup, save Coverdale) re-recorded the song for their self-titled album, which was released in April that year.  The new version was a little harder hitting, in the chorus anyway.  Also, Coverdale changed "hobo" to "drifter" because he was afraid people might mistake "hobo" for "homo," which seems like a progressive thought at the time -- and frankly, "drifter" sounds better in the song.  This is the most popular version, and the one that hit #1 in the U.S. and Canada, and was Top 10 in several other countries (#5 in The Netherlands, #7 in Ireland, and #9 in the UK) and ended up being the #7 song on Billboard's year-end chart for 1987.

You may occasionally hear "Here I Go Again" on the radio and think to yourself that it sounds a little off.  You'd be right.  Don't ever fucking doubt yourself.  You see, in addition to the album version, the band (with a couple more lineup changes) also recorded a "radio mix" of the song in 1987.  The radio mix is a little heavy on the keyboards, if you ask me.  It almost sounds like Heart trying to cover Whitesnake.

There's only one version of the song that features Tawny Kitaen doing gymnastics on the hoods of two Jaguars, and that's the album version from 1987.  Kitaen, of course, would later be featured in the video for the band's follow-up single, "Is This Love" (which hit #2 in the U.S.), before marrying Coverdale, before having an affair with OJ Simpson while he was still married to Nicole Brown, before divorcing Coverdale, before making an appearance on the "Nose Job" episode of Seinfeld as Jerry's sexy airhead actress girlfriend, before replacing Arleen Sorkin as Dave Coulier's co-host of America's Funniest People, before marrying major league pitcher Chuck Finley, before she was arrested for domestic battery after she repeated kicked Finley in the face with high heels and then stabbed him in the leg with her high heels, before going on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.