Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century

by Chuck Klosterman

Lane wrote most of the music for Warrant and was particularly excited about the release of what would be their second album, a record he wanted to title Uncle Tom’s Cabin. He thought the hypothetical title track, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” was the most sophisticated thing he’d ever composed, and it probably was. But the people at Columbia Records thought it was too understated and “political” (or something), so they told Lane to write an anthem that was consciously unserious. He supposedly wrote “Cherry Pie” in less than fifteen minutes, made several million dollars, and regretted having done so for the next fifteen years. When you interviewed Lane during the late ’90s, he would talk about “Cherry Pie” like a man who’d thoughtlessly married a gorgeous woman and immediately realized he’d irrevocably altered the very meaning of his life, but I guess Lane did that, too (he married the woman from the “Cherry Pie” video, Bobbie Brown, in 1991—but they divorced in ’93). He sighed a lot. He still made jokes, but they were dark as fuck.