THE VIDEO Poison, "Cry Tough," Look What the Cat Dragged In, 1986, Capitol
SAMPLE LYRIC "You gotta cry tough! / Out on the streets! / To make, your dreams ha-ah-pen / You gotta cry out! / Out to the world! / To make them all come true, yeah-ah"
THE VERDICT There's a very good reason that this song gets played over the montage at the end of pretty much every heavy metal retrospective-type special. You know, the part where they've just finished talking about grunge, and Nirvana, and bands cutting their hair or trying a new sound, and now they're all remembering the good times, when these guys were on top of the world? You'll get clips of guitars being waved at the camera, and fans screaming, and guys backstage spraying beer on each other. And over it all, this Poison song will blast.
Why? Because it is one of the most inspirational heavy metal songs pretty much ever. (Also, the way it builds at the beginning — with the drums, and then the guitar coming in — makes for an easy edit into a montage if you go straight from the big guitar punch at the end of the intro and just transition directly to the chorus.)
Seriously though, you hear this song, and you just know: "I can do it. I can do it."
I picked this song this week because you know what? I can do it. And I did do it. This is this blog's 100th post!! It's come a long way since I first started it back in 2004, working on a clamshell iMac laptop with a 10 GB hard drive. In this past year (September to September), I've kept my pledge and done a post a week.
And now — miracle of miracles — it appears there are people who even read this! Yes, many are just hoping to see videos with a lot of sideboob (or in some cases, side ass), but whatever. I will lead you to the videos with the sideboob!
In other transitional-type news, I just turned 30. In other words, I am older than I ever imagined I would be. Per Rolling Stone, I can no longer be trusted, but whatever, they're way older than me. And face it, since they switched to that smaller, glossy format, and really even before then, when they started putting people like Zac Efron and reality TV stars on the cover, it's not like we can really trust them either.
Anyway, I'm 30. (Yes yes, do the math, I was like 5 or 6 when this song came out.) And yet, here I am, still plugging along. This blog is kicking ass. I am, as it were, crying tough, and making my dreams happen, or trying to anyway.
And seriously, this is what Poison are all about. In Decline II when Penelope Spheeris asks C.C. and Rikki if they ever thought they wouldn't make it, they just laugh. Though they tell us that things may be hard, and "sometimes a rainbow, baby / is better than a pot of gold", they also remind us that "when you get to the top / you gotta get off and go right back down again."
So yeah, life is sort of a Chutes & Ladders type scenario (god that is a stressful board game, give me Candy Land any day!), but you've just got to keep aiming for those ladders, people. "You gotta aim high, baby / whether you lose or wi-in."
This video further expands on Poison's utopian yet utilitarian vision. The band perform in a small, club-like space before a very packed-in crowd of Poison fans. As per always, things are very, very colorful. They've got their awesome, Warhol-esque risers with the album art on them (what I wouldn't give for one of those).
But even more than that, they've got what they're wearing.
The band look ahmazing. C.C. possibly wins: He's got on a purple and black leopard-print coat over a frilly scarf and some kind of crazy-patterned shirt, with tiny skinny black pants. The piece de resistance is the pink maribou boa tied around his head. This is an incredible look. I want to think he thought of it himself, but I would guess Rikki helped him.
Bret looks fantastic, if a little too girly rather than glam. His hair is super-teased, and he's got really sort of natural-looking makeup — it looks less glam and more just like the kind of makeup someone like Olivia Newton John wore around the same time.
Bret does however have awesome gloves on — red and black sort of cheetah print. He also is really well dressed — lots o' necklaces and bracelets, but for most of the video he's wearing a paisley tuxedo vest that he has wrapped around himself, emphasizing that circa 1986-1988, Bret Michaels had a seriously enviable physique.
If he looked like that now, I'd be clawing my way onto Rock of Love regardless of the costs to my dignity and self-respect. (And trust -- no matter what Bret claims, that Billboard cover is not even reflective of the way he looked then, let alone now.)
Rikki's a little hard to see, in spite of his habit of drumming standing up. He's actually a little drab for him — long black leather-looking coat over a band tee. However, he did make his hair extra poufy, and wrap a maribou boa (see!) around his mic stand, so kudos for that.
Bobby as always is a little more understated than the rest of the band. He is wearing a coordinated white pleather outfit — sort of a biker-style jacket over skinny pants, which he has tucked into white cowboy boots. He does however get bonus points for the red lipstick and armful of bangles.
The shots of the crowd really emphasize the sort of utopian vision of Poison. We can only ever really see the people who are at the very front, but it's a diverse bunch. For one, we actually have several people who aren't white, which is genuinely impressive for a glam metal video of this era (really of any era).
But we also see a lot more range with the white people than we usually do.
There's a long shot of a female fan joyfully singing along while holding a drumstick, and — you won't believe this — she's not thin. She may possibly be the one woman over a size 6 who is ever shown in an 80s metal video without a) playing someone's mom or b) being the butt of a joke.
In another of my favorite shots, we see a giant, sweaty dude (with a mustache!) in an AC/DC tee going nuts. He's next to a totally preppy Tom Cruise wannabe in Wayfarers. It's kind of amazing. They actually have a long sequence with another sweaty, short-haired dude earlier in the video — who knew all these short-haired guys were into this stuff? Then again, Poison did sell a lot of albums.
I'd be remiss not to mention the behind-the-scenes footage at the beginning of this video. We get some really beautiful shots of the band members' faces, particularly C.C. and Bobby. We also see Bret goofing around backstage with a sort of Jennifer Beals-looking woman in a truly bizarre ripped-up catsuit thing. I wish they showed more of this, 'cause I really like it.
At the end of the video, we see footage of the band being thrown out of an elevator, but it looks extremely staged. (Unlike, say, the footage of David Lee Roth wearing nothing but a towel and cowboy boots being hauled out of a hotel by a cop, which looks way more verite. If you aren't familiar with this, click the link and give it about 50 seconds.)
The other amazing part of this video is the "meet the band" sequences. The one at the beginning (toward the end of the instrumental buildup) is my favorite. The boys appear to be jumping on a trampoline, with the L.A. skyline at twilight behind them. It's smoggy, but you can see the lights of the buildings, and it just looks gorgeous. These are just the perfect "we made it" shots.
Following the guitar solo, we get a second "meet the band" sequence. They're in front of L.A. at night, but now each band member's face is revealed in turn through some flames. It's pretty badass, but given the large number of "meet the band" sequences in Look What the Cat Dragged In Poison videos, I can afford to be picky and say it isn't my favorite. The fire makes them a little hard to see.
The video ends with yet another "we made it" moment — a freakin' balloon drop. Balloons and confetti come busting onto the stage, and everyone just goes nuts. Someone gives the band silly string — silly string! — which they begin covering the crowd in. Bobby plunges into the crowd so headfirst that it's worrisome, but luckily they pull him out and he seems okay.
This whole sort of organized mayhem sequence makes the video feel like a birthday party for the band.
In fact, you could start playing the beginning of the song over the end of the video, and it would feel like a "remember the good times" montage.
It's just a perfect song, and the video — though staged — captures the sort of exuberance and hopefulness and "we're really doing it"-ness that characterized Poison at that moment. There's a reason this was the opening track on the album. I love it!