Skid Row‘s eponymous 1989 debut album featured quite a few songs that became massively successful, but one of them almost didn’t make the cut.
During a chat with the Professor of Rock YouTube channel, Skid Row guitarist Dave “Snake” Sabo recalled that the power ballad “I Remember You,” which was the third single they released from the album, was almost left off of it.
“Rachel [Bolan] and I had wrote it more as like, just to exercise that songwriting muscle, which you need to do as a songwriter. You write a bunch of songs, and not all of them are gonna make it to the record,” Sabo explained.
“So, we didn’t think that we wanted that song — we were like, ‘Eh, it’s okay’ — and the rest of the band and our management were like, ‘You both have lost your minds! That song has to be on the record!’ And we’re like, ‘Okay, I guess.’ Shows you how wrong we were.”
See the interview below.
The reason the duo didn’t want “I Remember You” to be on the record, according to Bolan, was that they didn’t want to be known for making ballads.
“We were like, ‘Nope, we don’t want to be a ballad band.’ Because back then, that’s what was breaking all of the bands at the time,” the bassist told Ultimate Classic Rock a few years ago.
After producer Michael Wagener heard the song and agreed that it should be included on Skid Row, Sabo and Bolan gave in, but only on the condition that there wouldn’t be any keyboards on the final recording.
Sebastian Bach, on the other hand, was in favor of the song when they were deciding whether to include it on the record or not. He told Yahoo that he suggested the band play it for their manager, Doc McGhee, who then said the song was going on the album.
“I mean, Carrie Underwood does it now. It’s a cross-platform smash hit song,” Bach continued. “Also, in the [Australian] issue of Rolling Stone magazine, they ask Norah Jones, ‘What song was it that made you want to be a rock star?’ And her answer was ‘I Remember You’ by Skid Row! That’s Norah Jones.”