Rock-tober: Day 19

It was 1985. The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, and Rocky IV packed theaters; Reagan was in the White House dealing with Khadafi's "Line of Death"; gas was about a buck a gallon; and that fall I was a Junior at Long Beach High School.

Also that fall, "Home Sweet Home" was released and it went all the way up to....89 on the Billboard Top 100. What?! The song did not do well on its initial release, so why do I remember otherwise?

The band was at odds with Elektra Records about what songs to release off Theatre of Pain. The band was pushing for "Home Sweet Home", but this was rejected by Elektra. Undeterred and believing in their song, the Crüe shot their own video and approached MTV

In the fall of '85, MTV was barely four years old and actually played videos all the time. Part of their programming included a video daily request. When "Home Sweet Home" aired, it stayed on the daily request chart for three months. It stayed so long, MTV was forced to enact the unofficial Crüe Rule, allowing them to eliminate a video from their playlist after 30 days.

In spite of Elektra not promoting the song at all on the radio and thanks to a fledgling MTV, "Home Sweet Home" went on to become the Crüe's most powerful ballad and the band's own favorite. Nikki Sixx even said, "...that song's kind of like our 'Dream On' or our 'Stairway To Heaven.'" It just goes to show, don't always listen to the naysayers. Rock on!

Mötley Crüe: "Home Sweet Home"

Incidentally, I'm not sure what the story is on the little umlauts in their band name. Linguists may correct me, but pronounced correctly, Mötley Crüe is actually Mutt-lee Cruh.