Songoftheday 7/30/15 - Oh Lord I pray you give me strength to carry on 'cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams...

"Here I Go Again" - Whitesnake
from the album Whitesnake (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's SOTD comes from the British hard-rock band Whitesnake, who came together under lead singer David Coverdale after his departure from Deep Purple in the late 70s, adopting the name from his first solo album. They released their first album as a unit in 1978, but it wasn't until record number two that they got their stride, with Lovehunter reaching the UK top-40 albums chart and track "Long Way From Home" becoming a minor hit at #55 there. By the start of the 80s, two other former members of Deep Purple were part of the group, and they scored their first big pop hit in Britain with "Fool For Your Loving" at #13 (it also reached the American Hot 100 at #53, and in 1989 would be re-recorded to become a US top-40 hit).

In 1982, the band with a mostly new lineup save for DP'ers Coverdale and Lord and Micky Moody released their fifth album Saints & Sinners. The first single from the album was "Here I Go Again", a mid-tempo break-up number that made the top-40 again in Britain at #34...

The rest of the first half of the 80s saw Whitesnake continue their moderate success on the British singles chart, but scoring consecutive top-10 albums there. They also gained steam in the U.S. with their Slide It In album, reaching the top-20 on Billboard's rock radio chart in 1984 with "Slow An' Easy". After another band lineup overhaul much like Heart in that same period, the band became much more mainstream radio friendly and were poised to take on the American market seriously. In 1987 Coverdale and his new troup released Whitesnake, and with a layer of synths and a punchier mix, "Here I Go Again" was released as the second single (after Led Zeppelin-ish rock hit "Still of the Night" dented the pop chart at #79). But what sent "Here I Go Again" to the top of the charts this time wasn't just the production or the song, but the presence of model Tawny Kitaen writhing on top of and inside the sports car Coverdale is driving throughout the music video that ruled MTV...

"Here I Go Again" sped up the American pop chart all the way to #1 in October of 1987, while surprisingly stopping at #4 on Billboard's Rock chart. Internationally, the record topped the chart in Canada and made the top-10 in the Netherlands, Ireland, and their native Britain, reaching #9 on its second go.

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Here's the band on tour in 1990...

and again in 2006...

and finally, some fun with Tawny, who had become Coverdale's wife from 1989 to 1991...

Up tomorrow: The King of Pop returns with an unending attraction.