Favorite Songs, Vol 1.: "I Can't Hold Back" by Survivor

I am a sucker for '80's hair bands.  From the obvious like Poison and Motley Crue all the way to the obscure like Dokken and Krokus.  There was never a genre of music that inspired visions of good times and just good feelings quite like it.  Hair metal also gave us possibly the greatest contribution to music as we know it:  the power ballad.  Many nights I have spent with songs like "When I Look Into Your Eyes" by Firehouse playing on the MP3 while thinking back on lost love and what could have been.  Let's face it, when it comes to the females, I have had a long history of letdown and broken hearts, and nothing speaks to the SOUL like a good power ballad.  They stir up such a variety of emotions inside: longing, optimism, bittersweet nostalgia.  Man, so many songs take me back to different memories in the vast chambers of my mind, it would be hard to list them all.  Tonight, we have an awesome song from Survivor.  You may know them as the band who sang "Eye of the Tiger" but any true Survivor fan knows there is so much more.  Powerful, hard rockin' and uplifting songs like "American Heartbeat" and "Poor Man's Son" will put some fuckin' hair on your balls and a passion in your heart....don't believe me?? Try to fight the urge to grow a wicked 'stache and peel off in a Camaro while blasting this:



I digress.  I need to stay on topic here.  The song I am profiling from Survivor is my favorite ballad they ever recorded, and that says a lot because they have recorded some doozies.  "Can't Hold Back" is the musical epitome of that initial moment when you meet a woman and realize, "I really wanna have sex with her".  Or realize that she means the world to you...whatever floats your boat.

The driving beat, AMAZING keyboard and guitar work and soaring vocals make this a key inclusion in any makeout session.  You kids with your Trey Songz and Usher don't know shit about wooing a woman.  It's music like this that likely conceived me.  Shit, this song came out in '84 so it wouldn't really be possible.  Unless my parents had the bootleg copy but I don't think anyone, even then, was scouring for bootleg Survivor.  Makes you wonder if anyone ever bothered...imagine being in a big city and going to street vendor and he tries to push this on you as some unreleased hot shit:

Look at that fuckin' cover.  Now by looking at the straight-up tacky album art typical of '80's releases, you wouldn't think anything of it.  But if you knew it contained such musical ecstasy as "I Can't Hold Back" I guarantee you wouldn't hesitate.  This song, truly, I want to be my wedding song.  If I ever get married, I want to hear the opening of this song as I gaze into my bride's eyes, feeling her "tremble when we touch", the "hands of fate reaching out to both of us".  I cannot do this song anymore justice...it's like a Roman Candle of sexual tension and joy.  FEEL IT, and love the awesomeness of the video:

Survivor, "I Can't Hold Back", available on the 1984 album Vital Signs.