Songfacts®:

• "Little Fighter" was inspired by a Greenpeace ship called the Rainbow Warrior that was destroyed by the French secret service as it was preparing to protest nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean. There are no specific references to the sinking in the lyric, so the song stands as an anthem of resilience, with many listeners using it to soundtrack their personal stories.
  
  "I saw in that song this little thing going up against a superpower, and I say, 'Here we go - a modern-day David and Goliath,'" White Lion lead singer Mike Tramp said in a Songfacts interview. "So, I put that in the lyric and wrote that song without going into specifics."
  
  "It's incredible how many people have taken that song as their own fight in life," he added. "From soldiers in wheelchairs to people losing their children and stuff like that. 'Hey, he was my little fighter.' And it's really heartbreaking when you know that kind of song went that deep."
• This was the first single from White Lion's Big Game album. Their previous album, Pride, was their breakthrough, getting them on MTV with the hits "Wait" and "When The Children Cry." They toured constantly to promote it, leaving little time to record their follow-up. In fact, Big Game was written at a motel in just two weeks by Mike Tramp and the band's guitarist, Vito Bratta. The music suffered and the album underperformed (the second single was a cover of Golden Earring's "Radar Love"). After one more album, the group disbanded.
• White Lion toured with Mötley Crüe and Skid Row to support the Big Game album. They were definitely the odd ones out on this tour, a model of rectitude among their sybaritic tourmates. Mike Tramp took pride in avoiding rock tropes like sex and drugs in his lyrics, which tended to be more inspirational or political.
• The guitar solo shows off the talents of Vito Bratta, who could create an impressive wash of sound with his instrument. Bratta became a bit of legend (in the Big Foot sense) when he vanished after White Lion broke up in 1992. He was finally spotted in 2007 when Eddie Trunk, the first DJ to play White Lion in America, tracked him down. We learned that a wrist injury had kept him out of action, and that he had secluded himself in Long Island to help care for his sick father. He was the subject of a Guitar World feature in 2022.