"We had expected empty rooms, possibly even bottles of urine, but from the first night everyone knew the words." The sudden rise, spectacular fall and slow road to recovery of America's great lost AOR band

Tyketto studio portrait.

As the 80s eased into the 90s, Danny Vaughn wrote a song that bore the bore the hallmark of a future classic. The subject of Forever Young was an unnamed, overworked waitress and her unemployed boyfriend. Its clarion call ‘Forever young, time on our side/We’ve got tomorrow, we’ve got tonight’ was followed by the killer couplet ‘Two hungry hearts out on the run, we’ll always be forever young’. Over the decades, Forever Young has morphed into a timeless, lighter-waving rock’n’roll denouncement of the ageing process.

Forever Young had delivered Tyketto’s record deal but, largely thanks to John Kalodner, the Geffen Records hitmaker who sanctioned their signing, the track suffered a painful birth. Aided by Heart and Bad English producer Richie Zito, Tyketto had recorded a faithful version of its demo that was sonically superior, but Kalodner sent it back. When asked why, he replied: “I don’t know – just do it again.”