Songfacts®:

• This yearning song is about a guy who can't let go of the memory of the girl he loves. His days are endless and his nights sleepless as he obsesses over her, refusing to move on.
  
  Skid Row bass player Rachel Bolan is responsible for the lyric - he often writes about down-on-their-luck dudes who have trouble fitting into society. Bolan wrote it with guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo.
• Lead singer Sebastian Bach, 20 years old when the song was released, used his iron tonsils to deliver a blistering vocal performance on this track. Bach grew up in Canada under hardship - drugs and homelessness were part of his upbringing. He had a talent for channeling his frustrated energy into his vocals.
• "I Remember You" was the third single from Skid Row's self-titled debut album. They were modelled on Bon Jovi; founder Dave Sabo was the original guitarist in that band and played on their first single, "Runaway." Jon Bon Jovi took a personal and professional interest in the band, signing them to a publishing deal with his company. Skid Row's first single, "Youth Gone Wild," was their anthemic live burner. Their next two singles, "18 And Life" and "I Remember You," were slower-tempo story songs with broad appeal.
  
  Two days after the album was released, Skid Row joined Bon Jovi on tour, where they piggybacked on their press coverage. The album sold a striking 5 million copies just in America, but this was a volatile bunch, and they weren't able to sustain the momentum. Sebastian Bach leaned into the Guns N' Roses sound and attitude, which is more apparent on Skid Row's second album, released in 1991. That one debuted at #1, but quickly nosedived with no hit singles.
• The line "love letters in the sand" comes from the title of a 1957 #1 hit for Pat Boone. It's a romantic cliché, but works the way Sebastian Bach sings it.
• The music video plays on the "skid row" theme, showing a homeless guy carrying around pictures of the girl he can't get off his mind. It was directed by Marc Reshovsky, who also did Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer.
• This was used in the movies Bones (2010) and Rock Of Ages (2012), and in episodes of South Park ("Guitar Queer-o" - 2007) and Manifest ("Off Radar" - 2018).
• In 2003, Skid Row, sporting new vocalist Johnny Solinger, re-recorded this song and re-released it as "I Remember You Two" on their album Thickskin. This version is at a far faster tempo, redone for Solinger's condensed vocal range. To say that this was not well-received would be putting it mildly. Fans practically had an album burning.
• This was covered by contestant Amber Carrington on the reality singing competition The Voice on June 3, 2013. Carrington reportedly admitted to coach Adam Levine during rehearsal that she had never heard the song before and during her performance she was forced to make up some of the lyrics on the spot. "People, they don't know that song and so they were like, 'No, I didn't notice it, but I totally forgot the freaking words, and I made up something," Amber told Access Hollywood's Laura Saltman backstage. "I don't know how that happened. But the words spilled out of me and I think they rhymed."
  
  She added: "I was like, 'This is a live show and I'm about to like stand here and not know the words.'"