Released June 18, 1986 Recorded 1986 Length 3:55 | Format 7" Vinyl record Genre Hard rock, glam metal Label Warner Bros. | |
"Yankee Rose" is a hard rock song recorded by David Lee Roth. It was written by Roth and Steve Vai and was Roth's first single on his 1986 first full-length album Eat 'Em and Smile. It was recorded as a tribute to the Statue Of Liberty in New York City, as the statue was completing a major renovation for the 100th anniversary of its dedication in 1886.
The song was Roth's third Top-40 hit, the first two being covers of "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody". It also appears as a radio tune on the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City on the rock station V-Rock. A cover of the song is the title song for the video game Rumble Roses and Rumble Roses XX performed by Teresa James.
Music video
The video run on MTV featured a prologue with a convenience store clerk observing various customers, including a newlywed couple arguing about a hotel room, a weasel-type played by Pete Angelus flanked by blonde bimbos, an obese woman screaming that her doctor says she needs to take a laxative to which he replies "not in my store you don't", an urban woman he tries to hit on, as he notices she is buying breath mints, and finally, David Lee Roth in a Tiki costume, who says "give me a bottle of anything...and a glazed doughnut...to go, and cuts to the start of the song.