America 250 Rocktober Song #2: "Look But You Can't Touch" by Poison

Our first Hair Band Friday of this America 250 Rocktober comes from a band that I have only featured once previously during Rocktober -- way back in 2017, when the whole Rocktober was dedicated to hair bands.  Man, that was a blurry month.

Poison was formed in Mechanicburg, Pennsylvania, before moving to Los Angeles in 1985.  Despite their hair and makeup, I've always considered them a working-class band, which I very much mean as a compliment.  If you've ever seen them live, they put on a great show, and they always come across as very down to earth and accessible -- well, maybe not CC DeVille, but every band needs a wild card.

Their 1986 debut album Look What the Cat Dragged In was a smash, reaching #3 on the Billboard album chart and eventually going triple platinum.  There was no sophomore slump, as their follow-up, 1988's Open Up and Say . . . Ahh! hit #2 on the Billboard album chart and eventually went quintuple platinum.  The original album cover featured a demonic cat woman with a super long pointy tongue sticking out of her mouth -- which you see on the YouTube video below.  In the era of the PMRC and the "Satanic Panic," such an album cover drew the ire of parents' groups, so they had to change it to a redacted cover that only showed the woman's eyes.  It doesn't get more American than censoring album covers for the sake of the children.

The album featured four songs that charted in the Top 12 of the Billboard Hot 100, including the band's only #1, the iconic power ballad "Every Rose Has Its Thorn."  The others were "Nothin' But a Good Time" (#6), "Fallen Angel" (#12)," and their cover of Loggins & Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance" (#10).

I'm going with a deep cut, but a good one:  "Look But You Can't Touch."  It's a balls-forward rocker that starts with a crunchy guitar riff, and the chorus is catchy as hell.  But the song is not your usual Decade of Decadence fare about getting laid.  It's quite the opposite.  The girl is chaste, and she staves off the narrator's advances, saying "you can look, but you can't touch, 'cause the best things in life ain't cheap" implying she's not going to do a damn thing with him absent some sort of long-term meaningful relationship, even after she chugs a beer in Bret's hotel room.