10 Perfect Songs That Had To Wait Years To Become Hits

It's become customary for every single hair metal band to get to their ballad side sooner or later. For all of the macho posturing they were trying to do under all that makeup, every bad boy has a sensitive side too, and all of Motley Crue's heroes like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith had that one song that brought everything down a notch. You have to reach deep into your soul for songs like these, but the origins of Home Sweet Home actually was just an exercise for Nikki Sixx.

During the recording of Theatre of Pain, Nikki had been toying with this exercise that moved around on one chord, thinking it would make for a good song but never finding the right way to flesh out the rest of the track. When the rest of the band started to pack up to get into their usual nighttime shenanigans though, Tommy Lee heard the song and immediately went over to the piano, coming up with the main lick of Home Sweet Home. Taking inspiration from their long years on the road, the song became a glitter rock version of Turn the Page, being the wild man onstage but always yearning for coming back to your home.

And if you ask the rest of the band, this is the song that saved the record, with only this and Smokin in the Boys Room being the highlights apart from some of the more commercialized songs that painted them in the same light as bands like Poison. Motley Crue were much more about being a street gang though, and Home Sweet Home is practically the ultimate road dog song for the '80s.