My Top 1000 Songs #976: Once Bitten Twice Shy

[I've been writing up my Top 1000 songs on a daily basis--you can see them all in descending order by hitting the All My Favorite Songs tag.]

Leading off Ian Hunter's self-titled solo debut, "Once Bitten Twice Shy" kicks off his post-Mott The Hoople period in style. It's a great example of a slow, frustrating work-up building to delightful release. I mean, nothing wrong with the verses, packed with rock star horniness, but you're mostly like, c'mon man, let's get on with it, and then you hit the chorus and all is right again with the universe.

For better or worse, the song these days is probably better known by the cover version, from hair metal act Great White--which is, ok, perfectly fine, because you can't keep a great song down--but the rawness of Hunter's delivery makes it just a good old-fashioned swaggering rock & roll song.

Live 1980:

The Great White hair metal MTV cover:

Yeah, it's also on Shaun Cassidy's insane Wasp album!