Music Review: Poison "Fallen Angel"

Poison

Fallen Angel

Album: Open Up and Say…Aah!

Year: 1988

                 Bret Michaels remembers a young woman he once knew in the                 pleasing “Fallen Angel.”

                A strong-willed guitar opens the single, setting a vehement tone.  He told her good luck at her going away party. She told him she had always wanted to live in Los Angeles. It was her dream. It was such a beautiful city with such promise. A week later, she waved goodbye to him as she boarded the bus. She told him she’ll remember him when. Later, he found out from her parents, she was working two jobs and she didn’t even time to even think about an audition. She found out Los Angeles wasn’t that much different from where she came from. However, he still pulled for her. (“She stepped off the bus out into the city streets/Just a small town girl with her whole life/Packed in a suitcase by her feet/But somehow the lights didn't/Shine as bright as they did/On her mama's tv screen/And the work seemed harder/And the days seemed longer/Than she ever thought they'd be/But you know you got to stick to your guns/When it all comes down/Cause sometimes you can't choose/It's like heads they win/Tails you're gonna lose.”)

            In the chorus, soon the story changed: she found a great apartment and found a couple acting jobs. She told her parents she finally had a career. But none of it was true. (“Win big--Mama's fallen angel/Lose big--livin' out her lies/Wants it all--Mama's fallen angel/Lose it all, rollin' the dice of her life.”)

               She began hanging out the clubs, drinking heavily and snorting every drug handed to her. Her best friends would call her but she ignored their calls. Her family left message after message on the answering machine but none were returned. She had a made new life for herself. The last he heard, though, her parents had to fly out to Los Angeles. She had an overdose. (“Now she found herself in the fast lane livin' day to day/Turned her back on her best friends, yeah/And let her family slip away/Just like a lost soul/Caught up in the Hollywood scene/All the parties and the limousines/Such a good actress hiding all her pain/Trading her memories for fortune and fame/Just a step away from the edge of a fall/Caught between heaven and hell/Where's the girl I knew a year ago.”)

              The chorus is sung again.

              In the bridge, he wonders if any help would’ve saved her. Not long after she passed, there was a message left on her machine: she had a callback. The network wanted to see her. She was on her way. (“Too much too soon/Or just a little too late/Cause when her ship came in/She wasn't there and it just wouldn't wait.”)

              The chorus is sung again to end the single.

             Micheals relays the cautionary tale without preaching at all. He treats the subject matter as though he were talking about partying, which is the smartest route to go.

             The  enjoyable “Fallen Angel” gets its message across by being fun and not such a big deal of the moral.