Songoftheday 11/19/16 - What's you're doing out in the night time why'd you call me on the phone, yhour mama can't solve your problem when's daddy ever get home...

"Don't Close Your Eyes" - Kix
from the album Blow My Fuse (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #11 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the heavy metal band Kix, who came together in the Appalachian northwestern Maryland city of Hagerstown in the late 70s, with Steve Whiteman taking over lead vocals from lead guitarist Brian Forsythe before they released their eponymous debut album in 1981. Their second, the slightly more mainstream Cool Kids, slipped them on to the albums chart in Billboard for the first time in 1983. However, it wasn't until their fourth release, Blow My Fuse, that eventually found them unlocking the power-ballad puzzle that got them to pop radio. After three uptempo singles that missed the Mainstream Rock radio chart, "Don't Close Your Eyes", written by the band's bassist Donnie Purrell with members of two other bands, Bob Halligan and John Palumbo, had the dark aura (this time with lyrics about suicide) along with Whiteman's screeching voice like that of Tom Kiefer of Cinderella...

"Don't Close Your Eyes" became Kix's only single to reach the pop chart, just missing the top ten by a notch in December of 1989. The song also climbed to #16 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart.

In 1991 the band released their next album, Hot Wire, and while they scored two minor hits on the rock chart, "Girl Money" (#26) and another power-ballad "Tear Down The Walls" (#42), they weren't able to climb above the rising tide of grunge and alternative rock on mainstream radio. Taking a break to pursue other projects, they reunited in the early 2000s (without Purnell this time). In 2014, they returned to the albums sales chart with their seventh effort Rock Your Face Off, which peaked at a not-too-shabby #49.

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And here's the band performing the song live on tour...

Up tomorrow: Foxy freestyle ladies have some cardiac arrhythmia.