Released: 2001
Track Listing:
Every Rose Has It’s Thorn story
Every Rose Has It’s Thorn
Steel Bar Blues story
Steel Bar Blues
Walk Away story
Walk Away
Devil Inside story
Devil Inside
Stay With Me story
Stay With Me
Something to Believe In story
Something to Believe In
Times Like These story
Times Like These
It’s Only Me Your Talking To story
It’s Only Me Your Talking To
The Other Side of Me story
The Other Side of Me
The Last Breath story
The Last Breath
© 2001 Poor Boy Records
Ballads Blues and Stories – The Stories Behind The Songs
Every Rose Has Its Thorn (Michaels, Dall, DeVille, Rockett)
When I wrote the lyrics to Every Rose Has It’s Thorn, it truly was about heartache and heartbreak, and there is no friend, no family member, you know, anybody, that can help you work your way through that–you have to do it yourself, and I’ve been able to do that fortunately through my music and through my lyrics and um, uh, I wrote this in about ’86; I was in Dallas, Texas and we were as Poison out on the road struggling to become successful and I could not fly my girlfriend out at the time and, uh, we parted ways and as she started to see other people, it broke my heart and that was truly it, and that truly was every rose had its thorn.
Steel Bar Blues (Michaels)
When we recorded Steel Bar Blues, we were in Nashville, Tennessee and I truly must say this was one of the most enjoyable songs I’ve ever written and one of the ones I truly did live in the studio. I was down there and I’d come up with this riff and I was looking for something to put into the film, A Letter from Death Row which I was just finishing up and so I set the microphone down on the floor of the studio I said “guys, just go with me on this” and I started stomping my foot, “bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp” and you can hear my feet just stepping on the floor and just stomping and the band just all of a sudden started coming in and I had the harp and we’re playing it and I’m clapping and it’s live and you can hear stuff going in and stuff going out and people talking in the background, but it’s what made the song unique because then we went back in and tried to rerecord it like that and it never had the feel so we just used the original demo version of the song which sounded better than anything we did after that.
Walk Away (Michaels, Level)
Walk Away, I truly must give credit to Kyle Level on this song because he came to me with this, uh, this beautiful musical piece, and this great melody for this song, Walk Away and when we were doing this song, it was one of those ones that, I truly probably would not have written a song like this, but Kyle pushed me, and when we finished it I felt it was such a beautiful song, and I went in and I produced it and I really got into the lyrics of it and it was a song then that we had made for the film, No Code of Conduct to end the movie; to give this uplifting tremendous ending to the movie and that’s what Walk Away is about.
Devil Inside (Michaels)
When I wrote the Devil Inside, I took the approach of this girl who was going through a horrible domestic situation; a very violent domestic situation that she’s trying to escape out of but she keeps falling back into; and I take it from the approach that I am this sort of angel or spirit that’s on the outside looking down at this person and I’m trying to save them; I’m trying to help them, and I’m taking it from the perspective, when I wrote the lyrics, of what this girl must have been feeling inside; and yet the love and the hate that happens in a domestic violence situation like that.
Stay With Me (Michaels, Level)
Stay With Me is truly a unique song in the way that it’s written and the way that it’s structured. It’s a chronological order of a girl’s life; and I had did this originally for a film I had entitled and written called Stay With Me in which the movie opens up with this beautiful song and the chronological order of this girl’s life bringing her up to the present day, and I wrote this with a great songwriter named Kyle Level, and we wrote this down in Nashville, Tennessee, and I feel it’s really a great, great opening to a movie that one day the world will get to see.
Something To Believe In (Michaels, Dall, DeVille, Rockett)
When I wrote the lyrics to Something to Believe In it truly was the hardest lyrics I ever had to write. It was a time in my life that, uh, when Kimo passed away it was just such a devastating time and I remember being home at the Christmas break and I went upstairs into my sister Nicole’s room and I just wrote these lyrics and they just poured out of me and it turned into many different things and it was my way of releasing all that pain. Rikki and Bobby and C.C. allowed me to just keep the song the way it was which I’m very thankful for and a very good friend of ours, Bruce Fairburn, who produced this song just let it the way it was. He loved it and it was beautiful and also, Bruce Fairburn had recently passed away, so this song, while doing this really, really means a lot to me.
Times Like These (Michaels)
Times Like These, to me, is truly one of the best feel-good songs there is. I mean, uh, you know, it has that feeling that if you close your eyes you’re just escaping; you’re going to a place where there’s no more pain, no more violence, and in the silence, you can just feel everything; if you just let it all go, you can feel that inner peace that comes every once in a while that you get inside of you and everyone really grasps for, especially me, I always am looking for that inner peace someplace and that’s what Times Like These is all about.
It’s Me You’re Talking To (Michaels)
When I wrote the lyrics to It’s Me You’re Talking To, that phrase says it all. In other words, it’s just me you’re talking to. You don’t have to put on any airs, you don’t have to pretend to be anybody. You can look at me, you can look me in the eyes, I can look you in the eyes and we’re talking to each other we don’t need to lie. It’s all right there in your face and in what you say and to me, um, that’s why this song is so important to write.
The Other Side of Me (Michaels, Baker, Myers)
The Other Side of Me is one of the first songs I had got to write when I was down in Nashville, and I wrote this song with two unbelievably great writers at Zomba in Nashville; I wrote this with Gary Baker and Frank Myers, and these are the guys that wrote I Swear, and I’ll never forget going into Zomba Music down there and they have these real kind of cool little rooms that you can sit down and write and have guitars and keyboards in there, and Frank and Gary were down there and we just started talking and we went out and got a bite to eat and we walked back and I said, “hey, I just got this idea for a song that just (humming)” And I just stated to kind of hum this out and all of a sudden, you know, they just picked up the guitar and started playing, and we just went through the song and I put the lyrics down, and if you really listen to The Other Side of Me, I truly feel that one day this will be one of the biggest hits, especially for a country artist, I mean, for me, I just needed to record it because I thought it was great, but I truly think that one day this will be a tremendous country smash.
The Last Breath (Michaels)
The Last Breath, when I wrote this, again for the film, A Letter From Death Row, and for the soundtrack, A Letter From Death Row, I wrote this with the feeling of something you would say to somebody if this was to be your last breath; something you needed to get across to somebody if you only had so much time left, and you needed to tell somebody how you felt, and we all play games, we all sort of figure out how we’re going to make someone feel, or we do this or we do that; but what you would truly say if they said you have got this much time to live, and you needed to tell somebody what you felt about them and that’s what The Last Breath is about.