Mötley Crüe released “Kickstart My Heart” as a single on November 20, 1989. The U.S. Elektra release paired it with “She Goes Down,” continuing the singles campaign for the band’s fifth studio album, Dr. Feelgood. It followed the album’s title track, with Bob Rock producing both recordings.
Nikki Sixx started the song at home with an acoustic guitar and handwritten lyrics, he told Entertainment Weekly in 2015. A former manager encouraged him to share it with his bandmates. Sixx had dismissed its potential, but the group developed it quickly once he brought it in.
The title had a much darker foundation. Sixx survived a heroin overdose in 1987, and he later connected “Kickstart My Heart” to that experience in an interview with Seconds. He described writing the song as part of understanding the addiction that had nearly killed him. That personal history ran through a record made while the band was trying to stay sober, with sessions taking them from Los Angeles to Vancouver. The circumstances behind the song and the disciplined work that went into its recording belonged to the same period of change.
At Little Mountain Sound Studios, Rock pushed for precision. Mick Mars recalled in a 2009 Guitar World interview that the producer would stop him while he doubled guitar parts over tiny differences in his picking. Mars estimated that he recorded around five rhythm-guitar tracks per song on Dr. Feelgood, with additional parts layered around them. It could be frustrating work, especially when Rock heard discrepancies Mars couldn’t hear himself. “But I get what he was trying to do with us, and in the end it worked,” Mars said.
Mars also wanted the end of “Kickstart My Heart” to offer something different from a conventional guitar solo. He used a talk box, explaining that the choice let him introduce another texture into the track. His experience with the device reached back to his days playing in cover bands, as he recalled in a 2024 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock. An effect he had used before joining Mötley Crüe became part of the arrangement on their new record.
The song was attracting industry attention before its separate single release. In its September 9, 1989 review of Dr. Feelgood, Billboard identified “Kickstart My Heart” among the tracks likely to keep rock-radio programmers interested. The album had given listeners their first chance to hear it; the subsequent single release put that recording at the center of its own campaign. Its B-side also came from Dr. Feelgood, keeping both sides of the release tied to the album.
“Kickstart My Heart” reached No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1990. Recognition continued with a Best Hard Rock Performance nomination at the 1991 Grammy Awards, following the title track’s nomination in that category in 1990. Two singles from Dr. Feelgood had earned Mötley Crüe nominations in consecutive years.
