You don’t know what you got (until it’s gone) is a heartwarming ballad and MTV favorite recorded by the Philadelphia-based foursome Cinderella during the hair rock boom of the 1980s. Cinderella singer/guitarist Tom Keifer wrote the song shortly after the band signed their contract with Mercury Records in 1985, but it wasn’t until the summer of ’88 that it became their biggest single ever.
The singer recalls: “I was at my peak at the time. “We were working with Andy Johns, the famous producer of the Rolling Stones and Free, on our first album, Songs of the Nightand things were not getting any better.”
It was while we were driving to the studio in Gladwyn, Pennsylvania during the recording Songs of the Night that Keifer was attracted to the idea of the song. Little did he know that it was meant to be something of a fulfilled prophecy.
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“I was thinking about how good life is and how sad I would be if [the success] all of them ended. And even though we already had another song in common, No One Is Dumbwe are prepared for our first record, when I arrived at Kajem Studios I sat down well at the piano.”
Note the arrival of Andy Johns, who is eager to continue the album and doesn’t like listening to a half-written song.
“Andy is no longer with us and I miss him so much,” Keifer sighs. He was over six feet tall and had a certain personality.
We were working with Andy Johns, the famous producer of the Rolling Stones and Free, and things could have been better.
Tom Keifer
Under the pressure of the game from Keifer – “Andy said: ‘Okay, Thomas …’ well, he was English!” – Johns agreed to sit next to Keifer at the piano for an impromptu review of the first draft of his new song.
“I was impressed with my performance, and when I finally turned around, Andy, this tough guy, had a tear running down his cheek,” Keifer recalls. “I knew then that I had a great song.”
By Keifer’s own admission, Cinderella was still “hanging around in clubs in Philadelphia” before being discovered by Jon Bon Jovi, even though Gene Simmons had been around them a while before. However, once JBJ promoted them to his label their rise seemed to be very fast.
The Songs of the Night The album peaked at No.3 on America’s Billboard chart, selling two million copies and later certified triple-platinum. When Cinderella rekindles her relationship with Johns after following, Long Cold Wintersthe inclusion of You don’t know what you got (until it’s gone) he was a complete idiot.
“The problem was that we cut the song too soon,” Keifer recalls. “So here’s the secret: we had to start over and slow down the drums, which we wanted to keep. That’s why they sound so big; because Varispeeding affects the volume of the sound.”
Those drum parts were actually played by Cozy Powell, not legendary band member Fred Coury, whom Johns considered “too inexperienced” for groove and song drive.
In what turned out to be a dramatic trend over the course of Cinderella’s first three albums, Long Cold Winters it was a better record Songs of the Night however it sold fewer copies than its popular predecessor. The bluesy maturity of the 1990’s Long Cold Winters it also denied the rise of art to continue the decline of the group’s business.
“I didn’t see it that way, but people were accusing us of changing our style from record to record,” said Keifer with a shudder. “For me it was progress; we became better musicians and learned to paint spaces, using Dobros, pianos and harmonicas to build up the color.” The writing style didn’t change at all because it was based on blues, country and gospel – the ups and downs of life, or falling in and out of love.
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Cinderella’s early status as a media darling would soon recover, and one disappointed UK reviewer said Long Cold Winters: “Tom Keifer wouldn’t know trouble when someone smeared his face in the Mississippi mud”. However, hard times still lie ahead for Keifer; four years of waiting for the next Cinderella album, It’s still climbingit was due to paresis of his left voice which had been diagnosed as a last resort (see side, left).
The style of writing did not change at all because it was based on blue, country and the gospel – crises and problems of life, or falling and falling out of love.
Tom Keifer
On the other hand, You don’t know what you got (until it’s gone) it became even more popular, and featured prominently in a TV cartoon series South Park as Eric Cartman lay motionless in his bed, surrounded by cells. Keifer says, laughing, “It was fun, it sums up what the song is about.
Almost 26 years later Cardiovascular CenterKeifer continues to make music, and toured extensively for his 2013 debut album. The Way of Life. The popular Cinderella line (completed by guitarist Jeff LaBar and bassist Eric Brittingham) reunited for live shows in 2010 but were inactive after that due to LaBar’s ongoing problems with alcohol. Keifer vows not to get together again until LaBar makes amends, their future looks bleak [Ed’s note – LaBar died in 2021 from a heart attack]
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The one-time Cinderella status may have waned, as have expectations for the band’s future, but since Keifer is a self-proclaimed “ballad fan” he has no plans to stop playing. You Don’t Know What You Have as the same artist, albeit in a slightly different form.
“A few years ago my wife Savanah [Snow, Nashville-based singer/songwriter] and I did it acoustically for VH-1, and now we’re doing it a little rough for a while before the band goes into the electric machine that everybody knows,” he explains, smiling. “It brings the house down every night.
“Sometimes when Savanah is not with me on that show tour when the roadies are pulling seats, I will call her and ask the audience to sing the chorus at the top of their lungs,” he adds, smiling. It helps us get out of both. Nobody wants to be lonely, right?
Originally published in Classic Rock issue 233 (February 2017)
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