The band's signature song, it is also their only number-one hit in the US, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on December 24, 1988, for three weeks.

[8] In an interview with VH1's Behind the Music, Bret Michaels said the inspiration for the song came from a night when he was in a laundromat in Dallas waiting for his clothes to dry, and called his girlfriend on a pay phone.

Michaels said he heard a male voice in the background and was devastated; he said he went into the laundromat and wrote "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" as a result.

The same young woman is seen driving a Thunderbird in the rain (two different times), listening to "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" on the car's radio.

The video was shot at the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and in an empty warehouse nearby.