You're All I Need (song)

For other songs, see You're All I Need (disambiguation).

"You're All I Need"
Single by Mötley Crüe
from the album Girls, Girls, Girls
B-side	"Wild Side"
Released	1987
Recorded	1987
Genre	Glam metal
Length	4:32
Label	Elektra
Songwriter(s)	Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee
Producer(s)	Tom Werman
Mötley Crüe singles chronology
"Wild Side" (1987) "You're All I Need" (1987) "Dr. Feelgood" (1989)

"You're All I Need" is a song by American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe. It was released as the third and final single from the band's 1987 album Girls, Girls, Girls. A glam metal tune, its guitar solo contains a key change mid-way that is a classic example of diatonic chord progression. The song charted at 83 on the US Charts, and 23 on the UK Charts.

Song meaning

The song was praised by Jon Bon Jovi as "the best ballad Mötley Crüe have ever written.” When informed of this, Nikki Sixx laughed because of the gruesome meaning behind the song.

As Sixx would later relate in his Heroin Diaries memoir, "You're All I Need" was inspired by some real-life violent impulses. Convinced his girlfriend at the time had been cheating on him with actor Jack Wagner, who was then enjoying a taste of pop stardom with his hit single "All I Need," Sixx wrote his own song — then played it for his ex. "I took the cassette over to her apartment and I didn't say anything. I just had a little cassette player and I just played it for her, and she started crying, and I walked out the door," he later told Rolling Stone. "I was like, 'Well now, that's that.'" However, the rest of the band praised the song and it was recorded for the Girls, Girls, Girls album. In Nikki's book The Heroin Diaries, a journal entry states that Tommy Lee was playing the song on the piano, and Nikki wrote the lyrics for the piano part.

Music video

The video (which was shot in black-and-white) depicts a man killing a woman with a kitchen knife (off-screen). He then takes a picture of her off the wall with his hand, which is covered in blood, and throws it in the fireplace. After the murder, the man begins having a breakdown, and destroys many objects in his house. The camera zooms around and shows a stove and pots, a sink, empty picture frames on the floor and a picture of Jimi Hendrix. The police then arrive to arrest him. Paramedics put the dead woman in a body bag and the man is hauled away in front of many onlookers. Though the murder was not shown on screen, the video was banned from MTV due to the violent nature of the lyrics. The video was directed by Wayne Isham.

External links

• Official website