{"id":346732,"date":"2025-11-01T00:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/346732\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T00:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:07:13","slug":"the-story-behind-the-1989-kiss-power-ballad-hit-written-by-paul-stanley-and-michael-bolton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/346732\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story Behind the 1989 Kiss Power Ballad Hit Written by Paul Stanley and Michael Bolton"},"content":{"rendered":"

When\u00a0Kiss<\/a>\u00a0began working on their fifteenth album,\u00a0Hot in the Shade,\u00a0Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons co-wrote the tracks separately and with outside songwriters. The first single, \u201cHide Your Heart,\u201d was written by Stanley along with\u00a0Holly Knight<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Desmond Child<\/a>, who previously co-wrote \u201cI Was Made for Lovin\u2019 You\u201d and other songs in the band\u2019s catalog. The band\u2019s third single from\u00a0Hot in the Shade, \u201cRise To It,\u201d also came out of a session with Bob Halligan Jr., who co-wrote Kix\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Close Your Eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley also reached out to\u00a0Michael Bolton,<\/a>\u00a0who had already co-written hits, \u201cHow Am I Supposed to Live Without You,\u201d which became a No. 1 hit for Laura Branigan in 1982 before he released his version in 1989 and Cher\u2019s 1988 hit \u201cI Found Someone,\u201d and more into the \u201990s\u2014\u201cHow Am I Supposed to Live Without You,\u201d \u201cSaid I Loved You\u2026But I Lied,\u201d and his soulful take on the 1966 Percy Sledge classic \u201cWhen A Man Loves a Woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bolton was also one of the few artists asked to co-write a song with Bob Dylan, which resulted in \u201cSteel Bars\u201d off Bolton\u2019s seventh chart-topping album\u00a0Time, Love and Tenderness\u00a0in 1991 and co-wrote songs for Kenny Rogers, Gregg Allman, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Kanye West and Jay-Z, and collaborated with artists, songwriters, and producers, including Diane Warren, Desmond Child, Lady Gaga, Ne Yo, Kenneth \u201cBabyface\u201d Edmonds, John \u201cMutt\u201d Lange from the \u201980s through 2000s.<\/p>\n

\u2018Hot in the Shade\u2019 and \u201cForever\u201d<\/p>\n

Released on January 5, 1990, \u201cForever\u201d went to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the band\u2019s first Top 40 hit since \u201cI Was Made for Lovin\u2019 You,\u201d which peaked at No. 11 in 1979.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I gotta tell you what I\u2019m feelin\u2019 inside
I could lie to myself, but it\u2019s true
There\u2019s no denying when I look in your eyes
Girl, I\u2019m out of my head over you<\/p>\n

I lived my life believin\u2019 all love is blind
But everything about you is tellin\u2019 me this time<\/p>\n

It\u2019s forever
This time I know and there\u2019s no doubt in my mind
Forever
Until my life is through, girl I\u2019ll be lovin\u2019 you forever<\/p>\n

I hear the echo of a promise I made
When you\u2019re strong you can stand on your own
But those words grow distant as I look at your face
No, I don\u2019t wanna go it alone<\/p>\n

Paul Stanly v. Michael Bolton<\/p>\n

The song was written by Stanley and Bolton after their brief meeting at the\u00a0Sunset Marquis hotel in West Hollywood. Though Bolton, who embraced the song and went on to perform \u201cForever\u201d live in concert, is credited, Stanley said he only had a small contribution to the song.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it was somewhat uncharacteristic for Kiss, people pegged it as \u2018a Michael Bolton song,\u2019 since he was co-credited as songwriter,\u201d\u00a0wrote Stanley<\/a>\u00a0in his 2016 memoir\u00a0Face the Music: A Life Exposed. \u201cSurely I couldn\u2019t have written it. In fact, after an all too brief initial writing session at the Sunset Marquis, Michael had so little to do with it that once it became a hit, he asked the Kiss office to fax him over a copy of the lyrics. Only then did he start performing the song in concert, and introducing it as a song he wrote for Kiss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanley insisted that the arrangement of \u201cForever\u201d that the band wanted remained intact because he fought for it with the band\u2019s label. \u201cHe [A&R rep] sat me down in his office and said I needed to re-edit it so it faded out on the chorus,\u201d said Stanley. That was song-arranging 101, and even though it could be effective in some cases, it wasn\u2019t right for that song. The ending was one of the qualities that made \u2018Forever\u2019 unique.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cThis desk expert pushed his opinion relentlessly, and with a tone that made it seem like more of a directive than a suggestion. I\u2019d had enough. \u2018I was doing this when you were in grade school,\u2019 I told him. \u2018I was at this label before you were here, and I\u2019ll be here after you\u2019re gone. So thanks, but no thanks.\u2019 That was the end of the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo: Brian Lowe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When\u00a0Kiss\u00a0began working on their fifteenth album,\u00a0Hot in the Shade,\u00a0Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons co-wrote the tracks separately and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":346733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,11756,170255,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-346732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-kiss","10":"tag-michael-bolton","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115471531831758459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}