Coming of Age

This was the second single (after "High Enough"), for Damn Yankees, a supergroup that included Jack Blades (Night Ranger), Tommy Shaw (Styx) and Ted Nugent. According to Blades, this was a very special song for the band. He told the story in a Songfacts interview: "We were here at my house rehearsing with the Damn Yankees. We were downstairs, and Tommy was upstairs on the grand piano in my living room, and Tommy was doing dink dink dink dink dink dink dink dink dink on the piano. And I said, 'Oh, that's cool.' And I came running over and I started singing, 'Dressed to kill and looking dynamite with her high lace...' and it was just really cool. And so we went downstairs to the rehearsal room and Tommy grabbed his guitar and started playing that dink dink dink dink dink dink on his guitar. And we started jamming, and then Ted kicked in with his guitar, and rrrrrooooowwrrrr, and then Ted came down with the honky tonk thing, and then Tommy, 'Little sister hits the stage,' I mean, we just came up with that one. That was another one we just liked. Boom! There was the song. And it was so much fun. And we were like, this is what the Damn Yankees is all about. This is it. That and 'High Enough,' stuff like that. And that kind of formulated us for the Damn Yankees from that point on, that sort of rhythm and blues feeling, that really set the stage for the rest of the Damn Yankees stuff."

"Coming Of Age" went to #1 on Billboard's Album Rock Tracks chart and also did some damage on the Hot 100, landing at #60. The video did well on VH1, which targeted an older audience and where he never expected to see Ted Nugent. Supergroups rarely last more than two albums, and that was the lifespan of Damn Yankees, which issued their second album, Don't Tread, in 1992. The group members stayed amicable and got back together from time to time to record and perform.