Originally recorded for the group's 1982 album, "Saints & Sinners", Coverdale reveals it wasn’t his idea to redo the song for their self-titled 1987 release.
"Well, first off, it was Geffen's idea,” explains Coverdale, “I never re-recorded things other than a song called 'Blindman', which was on my original solo album, 'White Snake', and then we put it on 'Ready An' Willing' album because then that's when I felt we really had the solid idea of the early Whitesnake, with Bernie Marsden, Micky Moody, Neil Murray, Jon Lord and Ian Paice, and they did a masterly job on it.
“But I've never been one for re-recording. And [guitarist] John [Syke] and I had written enough for an album of original material. But [Geffen] wanted to do — and this has served us incredibly well — redo 'Here I Go Again'. John was not pleased, but history speaks for itself. And I said, 'Well, if we're gonna do that, I wanna redo 'Crying In The Rain',' which I was never really happy with the original recording of it. And we had arranged — John, Neil Murray and I had arranged — a special centerpiece, which was a great solo for John, a solo feature. But also the whole album was pretty much designed for [drummer] Cozy Powell, God rest his soul. And when we featured it in concert, it went from John's amazing, electrifying solo into Cozy's extraordinarily earth-shattering, thunderous drum solo.
"We had a great relationship with radio for the 'Slide It In' album, and they were actually waiting for a new Whitesnake album, rock radio,” he adds. “So we delivered this thing. And of course, at that time MTV was a huge element globally. So Whitesnake from being successful in a couple of territories became a global entity, which was super validation, as you can imagine."
While the original 1982 version of “Here I Go Again” failed to chart in the US, the 1987 version topped the Billboard Hot 100 to earn the band their first and only No. 1 US single, while helping the “Whitesnake” album go on to sell more than 8 million copies in the region.
Whitesnake are streaming the remastered video for "Here I Go Again" alongside Coverdale’s comments and a trailer for the “Greatest Hits” reissue, which is now available on digital and streaming services worldwide, with CD and LP versions due to be released in the next month.
The compilation focuses extensively on three blockbuster albums the band released during the 1980s: 1984’s “Slide It In”, 1987’s “Whitesnake”, and 1989’s “Slip Of The Tongue”, and the collection goes deeper with songs like “Sweet Lady Luck,” a b-side on the 12” single for “The Deeper The Love,” and “Forevermore,” the title track from the band’s 2011 album.
Whitesnake are currently playing shows on a newly-launched farewell world tour.
See also:
Whitesnake announce Greatest Hits reissue
Scorpions announce North American tour with Whitesnake
David Coverdale sells his Whitesnake and Deep Purple song catalog
Whitesnake welcome new bassist to lineup for farewell tour
Search Deep Purple at hennemusic
Search Whitesnake at hennemusic
Search Rainbow at hennemusic
Search Glenn Hughes at hennemusic
