Every Little Kiss

Bruce's brother John Hornsby recounted that "the premise of this song is how poorer families are broken up when the husband or father has to get a job far away in another town because there are no opportunities at home."^[3] He noted that "Bruce came up with this idea in the summer of '85 when there were a lot of stories in the news about steel mills and shipyards shutting down" and that the song's theme is "the basic longing and about how it gets more intense when you have less control over your life thanks to hard economic times".^[3]

Like other songs from Hornsby's debut album, "Every Little Kiss" was composed and initially recorded with him on piano accompanied by an Oberheim OB-X analog synthesizer and a LinnDrum drum machine.^[4] The introductory solo piano passage of the song quotes "The Alcotts" movement from Charles Ives' Concord Sonata.^[5]

The song was originally released by RCA Records as the band's debut single along with the album The Way It Is in early 1986. "Every Little Kiss" entered the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on July 26 at number 93, peaked at number 72 on August 23, and remained in the Hot 100 for a total of nine weeks through September 20, the week that "The Way It Is" debuted. It also hit number 18 on the Album Rock Tracks chart on July 26 and number 37 on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart on August 16.^[6] The single version is 4:29 edit of the 5:48 album version.

Following the number one success of "The Way It Is" in December 1986, the band's winning of the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in February 1987 and a Top 10 showing by "Mandolin Rain" in March, RCA decided to re-release "Every Little Kiss". RCA executive vice-president Butch Waugh said "we knew it was a hit to start with" but that "it was just the new-artist syndrome" that held it back when it was initially released.^[7] A 5:10 remix of the song was prepared by Los Angeles producer Eddie King for the new single,^[a] and the song was chosen by RCA as a test release of the new cassette single format.^[8] On May 16, 1987, this version debuted on the Hot 100 at number 61, above its original peak position^[9] and proceeded to climb the chart, topping out at number 14 on July 11. The accompanying music video went into heavy rotation on MTV.^[10] Its 15-week second run on the singles chart ended on August 22. The song also re-entered the Hot Adult Contemporary chart, reaching number three on July 11 and making it the band's third Top 5 A/C hit.

A reviewer at the time called the song called it "catchy but traditional,^[11] while Billboard declared it "upbeat American rock" and "a Jackson Browne/Bob Seger hybrid".^[1] A rock radio programmer for WHJY radio said that it "has a synthesizer that helps me bring my core audience up to 1986",^[12] but upon its first release, some radio programmers called it "too country", "too Southern" and "too mellow" for pop radio.^[7] Before the single's 1987 re-release, Hornsby himself said the single "sort of set the album up on rock radio, though it didn't cross over into the Hot 100" [sic].^[11]