Songoftheday 8/5/17 - If the moon and stars should fall they'd be easy to replace, I would lift you up to heaven and you would take their place...

"I Saw Red" - Warrant
from the album Cherry Pie (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's song of the day comes from the glam metal band Warrant, whose sophomore album sent its title track, "Cherry Pie", into the American pop top ten in the fall of 1990. The second single from the record was the power-ballad "I Saw Red". Written by lead singer Jani Lane, the song tells of a man catching his cheating lover en flagrante, a true-life scenario for Lane...

"I Saw Red" became Warrant's final top 10 (and top-40) pop hit in February of 1991. The song also climbed to #14 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart.  Internationally, the record reached the top-40 in Canada (#17) and Australia (#36). The third single from Cherry Pie, the southern rock styled story song of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", made it to #19 on the Mainstream Rock chart, but stopped at #78 on the pop Hot 100. The same went for the fourth release, the ballad "Blind Faith", which peaked at #39 rock and #88 pop.

The following year, the band contributed a cover of Queen's "We Will Rock You" to the soundtrack to the Cuba Gooding Jr. boxing movie Gladiator, and it was their final minor pop hit at #83. But by the time of their third studio set Dog Eat Dog, grunge rock like Nirvana and Soundgarden ruled the land, and lead single "Machine Gun" only managed a week on the Mainstream Rock chart at #36. With Columbia Records dropping them, the next decade saw the act shuffle through member, including Lane leaving, returning, and leaving again for a non-existent solo career. He was most known at that time for his stint on the reality show Celebrity Fit Club, battling weight issues along with his drug and alcohol problems. However, those problems would conquer Jani in the end, as he died in 2011 from alcohol poisoning. Warrant would still continue (it had already been at that point), at this time with lead singer Robert Mason. Their most recent album Louder Harder Faster came out this past May.

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Here's an acoustic take of the song by the band...

Next up, Warrant in concert in 1991...

and finally,  Lane solo live in 2006...

Up tomorrow: The power of positive romantic thinking for this (little) stone cold soul singer.