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This song was written and originally performed by Dokken, and released on the 1984 Album Tooth And Nail. The original recording of this song can be purchased digitally from iTunes and Amazon. The compact disc can be purchased online from Amazon. I strongly encourage you to purchase it to support the artists who gave us this wonderful music.
Alone Again is the prototypical power ballad, a solid blend of heartbreak, strong melodies and raging guitars. Although many great artists used this same template to great effect over the coming years (the decade I lovingly refer to as the “Musical Renaissance of Hair Metal”), I still believe that few did it quite as sincerely and powerfully as Dokken did in their early years.
When I decided to record this song as my first covers release, I started without taking a ‘review’ listen to the original. It wasn’t until I’d already made a large number of the creative choices for the recording that I went back and listened to Dokken’s original rendition of the song.
I was surprised by the sparseness of the original recording. The bulk of what you heard in the Dokken recording from 1984 consisted of acoustic guitar, drums and vocals. In addition, I discovered that several of the things I’d thought I had heard over the years were not, in fact, in the original recording. This had the neat result of giving my take on the song my own special flavor, rather than being a carbon copy of the original.
Hope you enjoy it!