“Alone Again” by Dokken

"Alone Again" was Dokken's power ballad on Tooth and Nail in 1984, and it had been sitting around for years. Don Dokken wrote it in 1975, when he was 22, put it on a cassette and left it in a closet for close to a decade. Then Elektra, watching every glam metal band on the block cash in on ballads, told Dokken they needed one too, so Don went digging and reworked the old song with bassist Jeff Pilson in the studio.

It's a song about a man sinking into depression after a break-up, with Don singing lead over his own guitar and George Lynch's, Pilson on bass and keyboards, and Mick Brown on drums, Brown and Pilson filling in the backing vocals. Tom Werman produced, Roy Thomas Baker was associate producer and Michael Wagener mixed. It finally charted in 1985, climbing as high as #64 on the Billboard Hot 100 while the Mainstream Rock chart took it to #20.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.