On With The Show

According to the Motley Crue biography The Dirt, "On With The Show" is about Nikki Sixx renouncing his given birth name (Frank Feranna Jr.) and essentially "killing" his old self after his father told him something along the lines of, "I have no son." The opening line sets the stage: Frankie died just the other night

This song was included on Mötley Crüe's 1981 debut album, Too Fast For Love. They didn't have a record deal, so they set up their own label, Leathür Records, to distribute it. The band was building a legend in Los Angeles not only for their music, but for their debauchery - all those salacious adventures told in The Dirt. It didn't take long after the album release for Crüe to sign with Elektra Records, which remixed it and gave it a more professional release (better artwork, some promotion) in 1982. Over the next few years, the band became immensely popular and Too Fast For Love started selling, eventually going Platinum in America.

Nikki Sixx wrote this song with lead singer Vince Neil. Sixx was the primary songwriter in the band; many of the songs on Too Fast For Love he'd been working on with his previous band, London.