Tag Archives: Poison Apples

Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories

Nikki Sixx – What Do You Mean I Don’t Write Good Lyrics?

Nikki Sixx is one of the most active artists there is.  Apart from doing the Motley Crue shows, he does Sixx A.M., he does photography, he has a presence on social media and he does his radio show.  Somewhere in between he finds time to also be a family man.

A few days ago, his mother passed away, and from that tragedy, it got me to go back and listen to the music that Nikki Sixx has created.

Dancing On Glass (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

Going way too fast
Gonna burn and crash
Valentine’s in London
Found me in the trash

I’m no puppet
I engrave my veins with style

It is the Mick Mars guitar riff that hooked me first, using the renowned devil tri-tone.  It’s rock ‘n’ evil and  it’s Nikki’s memoir to his heroin addiction.  Life Is Beautiful (2007) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M. goes a step better (plus the chorus line gives a nice nod to Duran’s Duran’s Come Undone).

 

There’s nothing like a funeral to make you feel alive

How true is that? We complain about our life, sometimes even wishing that we are dead and then when tragedy strikes, we realise how alive we really are.

Find Myself (1997) from Generation Swine and Heart Failure (2007) from The Heroin Diaries from Sixx A.M. explore the addictions of Nikki Sixx with lyrics like “I gotta find myself some drugs, I gotta find some liquid sunshine” and “I miss today I miss the past, I miss my veins ’cause they’ve collapsed.”

However the best song that captures Nikki’s addiction is Girl With Golden Eyes (2007) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M.

She speaks to me in Persian
Tells me that she loves me
The girl with golden eyes
And though I hardly know her
I let her in my veins
And trust her with my life

I love the heroin and girl romance analogy. Credit also goes to James Michael and DJ Ashba.

On With The Show (1981) from Too Fast For Love

Frankie died just the other night
Some say it was suicide

Nikki has gone on record to say that On With The Show is about him leaving his birth name behind and taking on the Nikki Sixx name.  The reference to Frankie is a reference to himself.

Dr Feelgood (1989) from Dr Feelgood

Cops on the corner always ignore
Somebody’s getting paid
Jimmy’s got it wired, law’s for hire
Got it made in the shade

It’s a movie scene. It paints a picture. It’s Scarface and Jimmy is Al Pacino. Music done right is timeless. Dr Feelgood is timeless and it is Nikki Sixx at his sober best for the first time. 

Primal Scream (1991) from Decade Of Decadence

Broke dick dog
My head slung low
Tail knocked in the dirt
Time and time of being told
Trash is all I’m worth

Primal Scream was rewritten again as Face Down In The Dirt (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles. 

All I ever heard as a kid was “you’re born to lose”
All I ever wanted was a shot at breakin’ the rules

Stick To Your Guns (1981) from Too Fast For Love is the original Primal Scream. 

You got to stick to your guns
What’s right for you, ain’t right for everyone

What’s It Gonna Take (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles

So we wrote another song cut a demo on a dime
They didn’t like the sound, we didn’t fit the times
The radio station said “it’s way too loud”

I really like the autobiographical nature of songs.  Down At The Whisky (2008) from Saints Of Los Angeles covers the same theme of the band trying to make it.

We slept all day in our clothes
That’s OK in hollywood
Another shot, another show
All night long at the whisky a-go-go

Poison Apples (1994) from Motley Crue

Took a Greyhound Bus down to Heartattack and Vine with a fistful of dreams and dimes
So far out didn’t know that I was in
Had a taste for a life of slime

When push came to shove, the music was the drug and the band always got to play
Sex, smack, rock, roll, mainline, overdose
Man, we lived it night and day

Poison Apples and Danger also tell the story of the band’s early days.

Danger (1983) from Shout At The Devil

So we took our dreams
Ran like hell
Lived our youth
From the wishing well
Me and the boys
Made a pack
To live or die
No turning back

Then the band finally gets signed and become slaves to the machine with a stiff middle finger raised at all authority.

Welcome To The Machine (2008) from Saints of Los Angeles

 

 

Welcome to the machine
Once it sucks you in you’ll never leave
Grind you up spit you out
After all you’re just a piece of meat
Welcome to the machine

Saints Of Los Angeles (2008) from Saints of Los Angeles

We are…we are the saints
We signed our life away
Doesn’t matter what you think
We’re gonna do it anyway
We are…we are the saints
One day you will confess
And Pray to the saints of Los Angeles.

Home Sweet Home (1985) from Theatre Of Pain

 

Just one more night
And I’m comin’ off this
Long & winding road

Every band that spends a lot of time on the road ends up writing a song about the road.  Bob Seger did it with Turn The Page, Bon Jovi did it with Wanted Dead or Alive, Motley Crue did it with Home Sweet Home and the unreleased track Rodeo from the Girls, Girls, Girls sessions.

Rodeo (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

Another day, another night on stage
Lights go down, time to turn the page
Was this all I ever wanted to be
Six hundred miles, the highway calls
Another long day, now the hours get small
Riding out this rock n roll rodeo

No accolade to Nikki Sixx would be complete without reference to his favourite topic, SEX.

Girls, Girls, Girls (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls

I got the photos, a menage a trois

Ten Seconds To Love (1983) from Shout At The Devil

Bring a girlfriend
Maybe bring two I got my camera
Make a star outta you
Let’s inject it
Photograph it

It’s like Nikki new that Tommy Lee and Vince Neil would end up in their own sex tapes.  That’s what happens when you have keepsakes.

Punched In The Teeth By Love (2000) from New Tattoo

Construction work it’s silicone
Lights are on but no one’s home (wow)
She’s painted blue like a cartoon
Every man in town went on the honeymoon

I really like the cartoonish vibe in this song.  The lyrics are witty and funny.  Was Nikki referencing Pamela Anderson.

THEN comes the new Holy Bible, Nikki Sixx style.

Wild Side (1987) from Girls, Girls, Girls is Save Our Souls part 2. 

Kneel down ye sinners, to
Streetwise religion
Greed’s been crowned the new King
Hollywood dream teens
Yesterday’s trash queens
Save the blessings for the final ring-
AMEN

Save Our Souls (1985) from Theatre of Pain

Black Angels laughing in the city streets
Street toys scream in pain and clench their teeth
The moonlight spot lights all the city crime
Got no religion, Laugh while they fight

Save our souls for the heavens
For a life so good it sure feels bad
Save our souls for the heavens
Save our souls for the promised land

Sure Feels Right (2011) from This Is Gonna Hurt by Sixx A.M.

I’m driving down Sunset Boulevard,
Sex Pistols on the radio in my car,
And I must be high,
I just saw Jesus walk by.

Again, a picture is painted with these four lines.  I can relate. I can’t even recall how many times I have seen Jesus look a likes among the homeless.  Oh My God covers this theme even better.

Oh My God (2011) from The Heroin Diaries by Sixx A.M.

And we sit in our highrise apartments and complain about things that don’t matter,
And we race through this life just to see who can die with as much as we can gather,
And a few blocks away a teenage mother plays Russian Roulette with her daughter,
Is this the best that we can do, is this the best that we can do.

We focus on all the wrong things.  Nikki even eluded to it, in his recent Facebook posts.

Thank you for all the supportive posts here and on Twitter about the passing of my Mom.Her and my grandfather Tom’s recent passing is a gentle reminder of how fragile time is and a not so gentle sledgehammer to the heart that non of us get out of this life alive.If your wasting time procrastinating on anything trust me when I say “You’ll be sorry”.

I waited too long after a rocky road with my mother to try and rebuild the broken fence’s.You can never get time back.We all make mistakes and that was mine…..Again,thank you because it reminds me reading your posts how much we’re all alike…….

And of course that post, reminded me of a song that was released by the Brides of Destruction.

Life (2004) from Here Comes The Brides by Brides of Destruction

This is life this is it
It’s not everything you want
It’s everything you get believe it
It’s not worth leaving
Yeah this is life once again
It’s been knocking at your door
You ought to let it in
Don’t waste it it’s time you faced it

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Music, My Stories

Motley Crue – 1994 – Poison Apples, Hammered, Till Death Do Us Part – John Corabi Era – Part 2

Continuing on from Gerri Miller’s Metal Edge interview with Nikki Sixx.  The below excerpts in italics are taken from Metal Edge circa 1994.  The lyrics and comments are added by me.

“POISON APPLES”
A rocker with a punky vibe, this song was originally called “Hangin’ by a Thread.” Nikki wrote it last year in “Hawaii on vacation, when Bob [Rock’s band Rockhead] was out with Bon Jovi. I recorded the riff on a ghetto blaster and played it for the band, and they said this is really cool.  It got thrown into the Motley stew and turned into a bastardized version of the original. But nothing about it kicked ass.” Meanwhile Nikki was working on a possibility for his solo song with the title of ‘Poison Apples.  

Subject wise “The first part is my story what that time of my life was about. The second part is more about the band, and takes aim at the “tabloid sleaze” press preoccupation with Tommy Lee and Heather Locklear’s now-defunct marriage.  Lines like “Sex smack rock roll mainline overdose/Man we lived it night and day” refer to past excesses, and homage is paid to one of Nikki’s favorite bands, Mott the Hoople.  “Ian Hunter’s one of my favorite lyricists and Overend Watts is the reason I play,” he says. “Tommy Lee played honky-tonk piano on it.”

Don’t you love that knowledge.  How the song starts of as one thing and it ends up going through a metamorphosis into something else.    

Tabloid sleaze just maggots on their knees
Diggin’ in the dirt for slag
Moonshine, strychnine, speedball, shootin’ lines
Anything to push their rags

Nothing has changed these days.  If you want to be misquoted or if you want to have words taken out of context, do an interview for the mainstream.  If you want your fans to know what you mean, connect with them.  Let them be the interviewers.

Pretty little poison apples, see the scars tattooed on our face.
It’s your disgrace.
Pretty pretty poison apples, mama said,
“Now don’t you walk this way, just find some faith.”

The lyrics on Motley Crue are world-class.  I like how Nikki refers to the band as pretty little poison apples.  He is merging the Garden of Eden with LA and the dreams of a young kid trying to make it.

“HAMMERED”
Cool, heavy, with grooves galore, this song is “about a sleazy piece of shit person in anyone’s life.”  Some might infer that it’s about Vince Neil but when asked about it, Nikki insists that it isn’t.  I don’t know where I was coming from when I wrote it.  It’s a song about a dirt bag.  We all know plenty of them.  Written very quickly at rehearsal, its characterized by Nikki as having a Deep Purple vibe.

To be honest, when i first heard this song, I took it as a dig to Vince Neil.  According to Nikki, Vince quit because he wasn’t into music anymore and he wanted to devote his time to car racing.  According to Vince, he got fired, because he didn’t like the direction the new music was heading/  Apparently it was all keyboard driven.

Regardless of what story you believe, one thing is clear, Vince Neil delivered a superior hard rock album with Exposed, which came out 1993, a whole year before Motley Crue.  In my mind, this made Nikki’s words mean shit.

Act like Jesus crucified again
These four walls are closing in
Who and what do you think you are
A rich mother fucker in a fancy car?
Concrete jackal suckin’ on the past
Goldcard junkie kissing money’s ass

You can tell that Nikki is directing the words to a person who is suing him.  Vince Neil sued Motley Crue in 1992 after his firing, for 25% of the Crue’s future profits and $5 million in damages for being fired.  In addition, Exposed was selling close to the million mark.  As we know once, Motley Crue came out with their 1994 album, they only moved 500,000 units.

Hey, Mr. big time Hollywood,
Tell your story walkin’ if you think you could
Your money’s runnin’ low from your cocaine whores
Nothin’ but a rat scratchin’ at my door
Hey, now I’ve said all I’m gonna say
Time will judge, see who fades away

There was an incident where Vince and port star Savannah went to Hawaii.  After 4 days of partying on pills and cocaine, Savannah overdosed.  As much as Nikki denies it, this song is having a dig at Vince.  Time did judge, and it was Nikki that needed to get Vince back into the fold.

TILL DEATH DO US PART
This soulful heavy rocker is “about pride and standing up for what you believe in, standing up for yourself till you die.  It reminds me of ‘Danger’ off the second album,” says Nikki.  “It’s mid tempo but not really a ballad. It’s very emotional.”

Autobiographical lines include “I’ve walked my walk, talked my talk, lived and died in my songs. Temptation cuts so deep/Its fires still burn so strong/You know I’ve lived a few mistakes and I stand by them … Sometimes my words may cut too deep and I step on a toe or two/Half dead and barely half alive but I live by the truth.”

Nikki notes, “A lot of people tend to look at us from the outside in,” drawing wrong conclusions because of what they read.  But “I don’t really care, to be honest with you. The only thing that’s important is family and friends.”

Till Death Do Us Part is the best song written by Motley Crue.  They should have re-recorded this as a B side or a bonus track with Vince.  Of course Vince wouldn’t sing it, he has made that clear in previous interviews.  The album was meant to be called Till Death Do Us Part.  The guys even tattoed the name on their bodies.

Poison Apples – YouTube

Hammered – YouTube

Till Death Do Us Part – YouTube

 

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