Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Surely you can't
be serious getting hold hold hold.
Speaker 2: Why is bon Jovi's bed always messy? Why because he
doesn't think it matters if you make it or not.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, we can only go up from here. Yeah,
we are back today to discuss bon Jovi's fourth studio album,
New Jersey. I am so excited to talk about this album.
Speaker 2: This is one that I had. I told you i'd
Never Got Slippery when Wet loved the songs off of it,
never bought the album, But when New Jersey came out,
I was there picking up my copy, had my tape.
I still have it today, same tape that I bought
when I was twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, this is the honest truth. On
September nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, the day that this album
was released, Yeah, and I think they were always released
on Tuesdays, if that's I remember correctly. I told my mom.
I got up for school and I said, Mom, I
can't go to school today. You have to take me
to the record store so that I can buy bon
Jovi's new album. Uh huh, you know what my mom said?
She said what she said let's go. Oh, that's a
good one. She took me and I was the first
person that I knew that owned bon Jovies New Jersey album.
That's pretty sweet. Yeah, it's a She and I went
to lunch and then she took me to school after lunch. Huh,
so I can show it and brag it nice. So anyway,
we love this album. Oh thank you, mom. I'm still
grateful for that. If you haven't had a chance to
go back and listen to our Slippery win Wet episode
that was last week. The week prior to that, we
kind of did a bon Jovi introduction. We call it
Prelude to Prayer. So this is the third part of
a three part on bon Jovi. So, from the release
of the Slippery Win Wet album in August of eighty six, Yes,
bon joviy tours and tours and tours until October of
eighty seven. Yes, they take about a month break and
John and Richie start calling each other yep, and it
goes from Hey, what are you up to today? To Hey,
I've got this couple of chords I want you to hear,
or I've got this hook or I've got this lyric
And so it progressed into hey, I've got some stuff
that we can start working on. Yeah, and it's seventeen
songs that they end up with seventeen demos. Yeah, and
they were anxious to get back at it. If you've
ever done something great, yeah, you want to get out
there and prove that you can do it again. And
it wasn't a fluke, and so they were very anxious
to get back in the studio and record more hits.
Speaker 2: They didn't want the album to be a one hit wonder,
and so they were out there doing everything they could
to create another You Give Love a Bad Name, right,
which is pretty tricky, and so they enlisted the help
again of Desmond Child. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: They tried so hard to recreate the next big You
Give Love a Bad Name, that the first song they
wrote is a song called Love is Warah, which you
can hear. It's on the Special Condition New Jersey. They
actually had to omit it because it's the same chord
progression as You Give Love a Bad Name. Like, they
wanted to make it so bad that they actually repeated
it right. And it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I've heard Desmond Child talk and he says there's a
real hook in the title is a key part of songwriting,
and what he tries to do is do things that
seem to have almost opposite meaning, you know, love and
bad name that title alone.
Speaker 1: Sure is dude looks like a lady. I hate myself
for loving you.
Speaker 2: Yes, so there are several songs. I mean, love is
War is an obvious title there, but I mean Bad
Medicine yep, obviously good in Ben Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's
all that kind of idea of let's take two things
that don't seem to go together because it captures people's attention.
Speaker 1: All right. So when New Jersey out in September of
nineteen eighty eight, the first week it goes to number eight,
The second week it goes to This second week his
number one. People were ready for Bonjobi. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They had released Bad Medicine as a single about two
weeks before the album came out. They did a good job,
you know, talking about what do you follow slippery when
wet with right right. They did a good job of
doing it quickly too. Yes, you know my complaint with
Bad versus Thriller is that it was five years later
they went back into the studio with Bruce.
Speaker 1: Fairbairn and back to Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, back to Yeah, back to Canada, back to the
same recording studio and looked to create the magic again.
Speaker 1: They came up, like you said, seventeen original demos, and
turns out they didn't really like any ambi. They were
trying too hard. Yeah, but the second batch produced Born
to Be My Baby and Bad Medicine. That is a start.
That's a good start, right for sure. Okay, I don't
know if you know this or not, but did you
know New Jersey is the first American album officially released
in the USSR. No, yeah, how about that? But yeah,
So they had all these songs that they wanted to
put out and kind of like Princess Simon the Times album,
they had all these songs that they thought were good.
I wanted to do a double album. Let's do a
double album. And again the record company's like, no, no,
it's too expensive. Kids won't buy it. Yeah, it's too much. Yeah,
so they cut it down to a single album. I
don't know if you know this. There's a couple of
working titles for this album, right, Okay, one of them,
I like, one of them is terrible. Yes, Son of
a beach Sons.
Speaker 2: Of Beaches, Sons.
Speaker 1: Of Beaches, which comes from the song ninety nine in
the Shade, Right, Okay, Sons of Beaches. It kind of
has that naughty word play, that slippery w and what
did Okay, But the other title was sixty eight and
I'll Owe you one, Oh my that that it's like
a title that Bill and Ted would name the first
Wild Stallions. Gosh, that's awesome. But anyway, they settled on
New Jersey. New Jersey, I guess is more of an
attitude rather than a place. Not a lot of people
brag about being from New Jersey. Right, all right, so
we ready to get into the track listing. Yeah, let's go,
all right. The first song on the album lay your
Hands on It?
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is they wrote this song in nineteen
eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: We talked last year last season about two of the
best albums from nineteen eighty seven, four of them actually,
but one of them was George Michael's Faith. Right when
the organ comes in on this, I could not help
but think of Faith. Yeah, and then he's got preacher
and teacher in there. Just I'm just like, I really
feel like they might have been listened to some George
Michael albums before the end. Why wouldn't you Why wouldn't
you if you are, if you are a hard rock
band looking for poppy kind of hooks, why wouldn't you
go listen to the biggest selling album of nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I think that they definitely copy this.
And I read something actually today from it seems like
it was maybe Ritchie Samborger's ex girlfriend or something like
that that said that they would just sit on a
stack of tapes, listen to the tapes, try to play it,
and try to steal whatever they could from those tapes
to put in their music.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The great thing to me about lay your hands
on Me. I mean it's similar we talked about last week.
Let It Rock to sort of get you ready for
the concert and get you ready for the album and
get you prepared for what's coming. And that slow drum beat,
that doom doom, doom doom. But the song that most
reminds me of is Let's Go Crazy about Prince. You
have the organ, Yeah, and it's almost an invitation to church. Yes,
it's like the Church of bon Jovi. Yeap you actually
have female backing singers. Yep. Of course this song is phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the layer hands on Me definitely has that
religious like faith healing kind of emotion going on.
Speaker 3: Hands on.
Speaker 2: This was the third song of the eighties called lay
your Hands on Me. So in nineteen eighty two Peter
Gabriel had a song called lay your Hands on Me,
and in nineteen eighty five The Thompson Twins has a
song called your Hands on Me. They actually asked the
Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins about what he thought
about bon Jovi's version. He's like, I don't think I've
heard that.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, give me a break. While they're working
on New Jersey, a couple of buddies, including director Wayne Eisham,
right we talked about him last week. Video, the guy
who did all the videos encouraged Bonjovi to write this big,
grandiose concert pleaser. Write something really big that we can
put on a video. They'll be awesome. And with the
encouragement of Wayne Eisham, they said, man, we got to
write some freaking blow the doors off song. And lay
your Hands on Me was their result on that. Have
you heard the Dolly Parton version of lay Your Hands
on Me.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what I've heard it, but I don't
think you can hear it enough.
Speaker 4: Let's listen to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think this song is really interesting. She
of course, Dolly is Queen of country, and she loved
the song and she actually thought to herself, she grew
up in the Pentecostal Church and thought, this sounds like
a church song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do. The Pentecostal Church does that faith healing stuff.
Speaker 1: They do. And so she contacted Richie and John and said,
can I change the lyrics just a little bit to
be become a religious song? Uh? Huh? And they're like
Dolly Parton, heck, yeah you can. Yeah. So that's why
the lyrics are changing the song, but it's still lay
your Hands on Me classic. Okay, I want to talk
about the video for a second.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when you got a formula at work, why
don't you stick with that? I mean, does bonje of
you have any songs that doesn't have them doing some
concert footage.
Speaker 1: In the No? No, But I think they took it
up a level for these videos. Yeah, okay. Yeah, So
this song reached number seven in August of eighty nine.
For me, this is the biggest of the biggest top down,
turn it up summer songs. Okay, I mean just pulling
up to a stoplight thumping lay your Hands on Me.
The car next you is gonna be like, yeah, job right.
But the video, so the video was shot in Tacoma,
Washington and Portland, Oregon. Okay, you have the awesome entrance
where they're underneath the stage when lay your Hands on
Me hits, they like jet up through the floor and
the pyrotechnics go crazy. Okay. Also in this video you
see the big ramp where they can run and be
like the people in the back can have front row
seats because they're up and they're walking all over the
place and from the I don't know what they call it.
That that landing, that platform that they've got set up
John is he's cut the band out and it's just
the people singing the chorus of lay Your Hands on Me,
and then it comes back in full colour. Video is great,
love it. I want to make mention one other thing
in this video. He's wearing this weird jacket right, and
the only reason I know this is because he mentioned
it in the concert that I saw Untilso I Go
Home at nineteen eighty year. This jacket that he wore
in this video. Kids had thrown a bunch of jackets
and clothing and patches and stuff on stage over the years. Yeah,
and he took those, all those patches and stuff and
he put him on one big jacket, made his big patch. Check. Yep,
that's awesome. I had no idea that that was from fans.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Fantastic, lay your hands on Me, awesome kickoff song, perfect,
top down, turn it up, love it, love it Okay.
The next song on the album song number two, the
opening single, Bad Medicine Okay. This song was released September
the third, nineteen eighty eight. It hit number one in
the US November nineteenth, nineteen eighty eight, so on that
day it edged out Wow Wild West by the Escape Club.
Speaker 2: I Remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, spent twenty weeks on the chart and was featured
in the two thousand and one film Jane Simon Bob
A straight Back Nice. Yeah.
Speaker 2: This one is such a phenomenal song, and it's one
of those that is timeless. I mean, you hear this
today and you're like, this is still fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It has lost nothing with age. It starts right
off with a boom like that organ dun dund dun
dun dunt.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the video on this one is very cool and
a little bit different.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what they did was they said we're gonna we're
gonna try something new. They gave cameras out to their fans,
like I think it was like two hundred and fifty
different people got cameras and they said, Okay, whatever you do,
we will keep the best of it, and for the
ten bests of the best, you get to come on
the road with us and go on tour with us.
And it sounded like this awesome thing until like people
were so intent on being the best that they were
like bringing in assistance and tripods and lighting. Like they
really made a production out of it, and so it's
not as amateur as they had wanted, but they really
did ended up with some new It was new and
exciting kind of thing for back then.
Speaker 1: You know, at the beginning of the video, it's Sam
Kennison's like, this is gonna be the same crappy video
that we see all the time on MTV. Is that
good enough for us? No? And let's grab the cameras
and Sam Kennison going going crazy. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it's showing Sam Kennison, Yeah, the kid that's
next to him wearing the blue cutoff T shirt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's bon Jovi's brother. Oh that's Matt Okay, Yeah,
that's cool. Love this song. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's got this fantastic part where he seems to
be done. He's he's worn out there. It's like they're
taking him off stage and then he's like, no, I
can't do it, I gotta go back. It's so James Brown,
it's so the Preacher from Coming to America.
Speaker 1: It's spot on awesome. I love it. I'm not done
one more time with feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the lyrics of the song are nicely comparing being
addicted to a drug.
Speaker 5: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Is it compared to being addicted to a lady or you.
Speaker 1: Know whatever your love is like drugs?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Desmond Child, Yeah, co wrote this song exactly. I
need a respirator because I'm running out of breath. It's
almost like a rap.
Speaker 2: It's really it is a very rhythmic lyric. That is
I mean, it sticks in your head.
Speaker 1: It's great. It is it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it's timeless.
Speaker 1: I think I just talked to my buddy Doug Gray
here tonight. Shout out to my buddy Doug Gray for
end of the show. Hey Doug. He said that for
his basketball team in high school, their shirts said bad
Medicine for the conference or whatever. So it it invaded
pop culture a little bit. Yeah, this is a great
story from Richie Sambora. Okay, so he was talking about
writing this song. He said. They were in Japan doing
a commercial for Fuji tape, right, and then whatever they
were doing, they were standing in water, and Richie had
been in this terrible relationship and while they're shooting this commercial,
he walked up to John and just said, this is
like bad medicine, man, And it was just one of
those things that came into his head. And and John's like, yeah,
we're gonna have to write that one down because that
sounds really good. Fine, that's great. So there you go.
Are we done with bad Medicine?
Speaker 3: One months down?
Speaker 1: Yes, bad Medicine. Great song. Two songs in.
Speaker 2: You're already You've got me, You've got Me, two songs.
Speaker 1: In We're killing it already, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like I've already had a good purchase with buying this
cassette tape.
Speaker 1: That's right, all right. Song number three, This song is
called Born to Be My Baby.
Speaker 2: I love the beginning of this. It's got a great
jump in your face feel to it. Then when he
starts singing the lyrics, it's got a very eleanor Rigby
kind of strings behind the lyrics. Then the lyrics are
very much Tommy and Gina from Living on a Prayer,
only it's from Tommy's perspective, you know, It's just fantastic.
And then the chorus of the songs, it may be
the most perfectly written chorus I've ever heard. I mean,
you could conceivably you know, this is almost like a
lullaby to your loved one at night. You were born
to be my baby. I was made to be your man.
We've got something to believe in, even if we don't
know where we stand. Only God would know the reason.
But I guess he must have had a plan, because
you're born to be my baby and I was made
to be your man. It's like Doctor SEUs. It is
but magical.
Speaker 1: The chorus is fantastic. Yeah, it's like a warm snickers bar.
I mean it just melds together so well, and you can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, you hear it one time and you've got
it like you're you will be singing that chorus along
with him by the time the song is over.
Speaker 1: First time you hear and you're absolutely right. Thematically, it's
very similar to living on a prayer. It's the working
man and we're doing what we can and take my hand,
we'll make it. I swear.
Speaker 2: I'm genuinely surprised that this was not a bigger hit
than it was.
Speaker 1: It reached number three.
Speaker 2: Right, which is good, it's great, but it should have
been number one and number one for a while. So
they originally said that this song was supposed to be
an acoustic song. It wasn't as poppy and.
Speaker 1: Let's speak okay, I want to talk about that for
a second. Okay, the original demo. You can actually listen
to that demo of the song. It's full on acoustic,
played very softly, very tender, and John feels wrongly that
if they had left it that same way, it would
have been a number one hit.
Speaker 6: Yephs, less Bless even Nedo the Something of Tamanu.
Speaker 1: And I listened to it and it's still that same magical,
beautiful song, but it's not that oh, that pomp and
rocker that it's certain.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're obviously married to what we have the
nostalgia with, right, there's no question about it. And I
don't think that that demo probably would have been would
have done it justice. I think that if you had,
if you had the twelve string that they used from
One and Dead or Alive, sure, and you had a
more full sound behind those those lyrics, that it definitely
because it just has that kind of lullaby feel to it,
and I could I could definitely see it being I mean,
I'd have been asking the girls to slow dance on
this song if it had been one of those acoustic numbers.
It was Bruce Fairbain who who convinced them to switch
it over to be more hard hitting.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bruce Fairbanks. The song that kept this out
of the number one spot. Yeah, straight up by Paula
abdul Well. That was a pretty big, one, pretty iconic song.
Eighty eight yep. Okay, I want to talk about the video.
For whatever reason, these videos hit me a lot stronger
than the slippery one White videos did. Yeah. So it's
it's filming them. It's in black and white. They're in
the studio and you can actually hear you hear different
pieces of the song. For instance, you see Richie playing
the guitar, so it's more of the guitar sound. Then
you see Tico and he's banging the drums, and then
there's a it's kind of a breakdown in the middle
of it, and John and Richie are like, what do
you think, No, I don't like it. Let's do it again.
And when they do that, then it comes the full version,
full on and it sounds fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they have a part in the video where like
all the guys are singing together right like they're they're harmonizing.
Speaker 1: They're all harmonizing around the microphone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Fantastic couple of things to note on the video. Yeah,
there's a one part in the video where John is
given a fair hug to a woman that is Dorothea.
That's the woman that became his wife. Yeah, they're still
married to They get married in eighty nine.
Speaker 2: I think they eloped in They went to Vegas, yep,
and didn't tell anybody.
Speaker 1: Including their band or the managers. Or their parents.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think literally no one was happy with them.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I heard that too. One other thing to mention,
the very last scene in the video. Yeah, they all
kind of stand on this table and they kind of
do this football huddle, and they're all kind of squealing.
They could tell they're very happy. Yeah, that is the
camera captured the moment of the band when they learned
that their album was number one. Nice. So that's great
in the Born to Be My Baby video. Yes, all right,
ready we are done with Born to Be My Baby.
Let's move on to the next song. It's called Living
in set.
Speaker 3: Less Breach.
Speaker 1: Once again. I gotta say, I think they're a lit
to George mine think. So this is one more try.
Speaker 2: It's no, it's Father Figure. I mean it's totally It's
so similar to Father Figure. Okay, I can hear him
say put your tiny hand in mind in the song.
I just I can almost hear him say that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's probably true. This song was
released October seventh, and nineteen eighty nine. This was the
fifth single. I find it interesting that they're still releasing
songs a year after the release of the album. They're
squeezing this for all it's worth. I'm gonna go to
bat for this song. I love this song. It's beautiful.
It's not one of the strongest songs in the album.
In fact, there's other songs that I would have released
before this as a single, but I love it. It
has that same never say goodbye, I don't care what
anybody says. I love you and we're gonna make this work,
that youthful passion that high schoolers feel when they're at
the problem. I'm going to run away and marry.
Speaker 2: This person, right, And that's kind of what the video
does too, right, isn't it. This is one of the
rare Bon Jovi videos that has like a storyline beyond
them in concert or in the studio.
Speaker 1: It's a couple of young people sneaking around at a
hotel and their parents are very upset catching them and slapping. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know that i'd anybody, but I would have
been upset in that same situation, right.
Speaker 1: My position has changed over the years. And then leave
them alone, let me alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shut up your stupid kid.
Speaker 1: This was the fifth song to reach the top ten.
That's the first time that a hard rock band had
ever achieved that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this album had more top ten hits than any
other glam rock album in history.
Speaker 1: The orchestra in the background of this song gives it
a breadth that I love. It's youthful passion. I love it.
It's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, castalgia again, I know it hits you right at
that time too, right, Yeah for sure. I mean eighty eight.
Speaker 1: You were fifteen, eighty nine, sixteen, Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you're right there feeling those crazy hormonal emotions for
some girl out there for several.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm capable of divorcing the nostalgia
from this album. I'm just doing the best I can't.
Speaker 2: I've said it before or in case you've missed it,
those folks out there listening in. Jason is a pop
culture savant. If he hears the music, he can tell
me band name, song name, and year it came out
and probably month that was most popular, if it was
if it had some some popularity to it. But I
think that always goes to he has it attached in
his head to some event in his life that he
can remember, and so that'd being the case, I can
see how you would have a hard time.
Speaker 1: I'm super nostalgic yeah, but that's why we're here, man,
I know, I know, that's why I love doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, last song on side one, song called Blood
on Blood.
Speaker 2: Speaking of nostalgia, here you go. This is it, right.
This is the song about when you're a kid and
you become blood brothers with your best friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can still remember when I was just a kid,
when friends were friends forever and what you said was
what you did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This song is about friendship and loyalty and being
able to depend on somebody and count on them when
you need them. It's all about those teenage relationships right right.
Speaker 2: And it's a great the music that they have going
along with this, It just feels right, It feels perfect
for that kind of idea. It's really a great song.
It's not one of the most popular songs on the album,
but it's a solid It is a solid mixture of
lyrics and music for sure.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: At this time, the band was unified and loved each
other and were making these incredible songs and doing these
incredible concerts and they were in sync. So this song
was great in concert. Yeah, because you believe they were
a brotherhood. By extension, the fans were sort of in
that family.
Speaker 2: I think that's important that you got to the fans
have got to feel that camaraderie among the band to
really buy in the way that.
Speaker 1: They want them to.
Speaker 2: And I think that, you know, I think call I
think they call themselves the New Jersey Syndicate. Yeah, but
they had a really strong, you know, band of brothers
type of relationship until they had been on the road
for something like seven years straight. They toured constantly with
Slippery when Wet, toured constantly with New Jersey, and by
the time they were done touring New Jersey, they all
got on a plane, a different plane and all went
to different places and didn't say goodbye. Yeah, never said goodbye.
You know, it's they were it was time for them
to be done for a little while. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was a tough little spot right after this album. So, yep,
for sure. Did you know the Blood on Blood was
inspired by the movie stand By Me? No, yeah, Rob Rynders,
stand by Me because that movie's.
Speaker 2: About yeah, yeah, I mean friendship and yeah it's yeah
kids doing in eighty six If that came out, yep, right,
oh wow, that's fantastic. Yeah that because honestly, that's the
movie when my friends from that age, when we would
talk about how close we were, we would compare ourselves
to stand by Me. Yeah, there is definitely a big,
big nostalgia associated with that movie, and this song captures
it well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lyric that says, through the years and
miles between us, it's been a long and lonely ride,
but if I got that call in the dead of
the night, I'd be right by your side. Blood on Blood. Yeah,
it's great stuff. Yeah, there's only one lyric that kind
of bothers me in this song. Yeah, it says Danny
knew this white trash girl. Oh, we each threw a ten.
Speaker 2: She took us to this cheap hotel and turned to sentiment.
Speaker 1: Yep, thirty dollars make you holler because I get paid
to do the wild. Just such a great emotional Once again,
I'm gushing. I'm trying not to. I love it song. Yeah,
all right, hit stop on your tape player, kick it out,
flip it over side to New Jersey.
Speaker 2: The name of this song is Homebound Train.
Speaker 1: Yeah, homebound train, and you've got the you've got some
of the train sound effects to start this off. Yeah,
and then it blows in full on rocker. Like we
said last week, it's like raise your hands on the
first song of side two of Slippery when wet. Yeah,
it's the hardest rocking song on the album. Well, and
it does that. You know. I talked to you before
about Crossroads.
Speaker 2: One of the ideas and Crossroads is you've got to
be able to imitated train. There's just something about trains
and rock and roll and the blues that you've got
to be able to do it. And they've got a
sound effect at the beginning, it's has a trained sound,
but then that guitar that down is very much a
train rhythmic style of sound. And then, of course, to
go along with the crossroads theme, you've got When I
was just a boy, the devil took my hand, so.
Speaker 1: It's very cross Yeah, I'm wondering. In the middle of
this song, you have the harmonica and you have the
dueling organ that it's it's very different from most Bonjovi songs.
Speaker 2: It's far more blues based, yep.
Speaker 1: And then you have that great guitar solo so you
can see Aero Smith and Jeff Beck. You've got that
slide guitar, maybe some led Zeppelin.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's I definitely felt led Zeppelin when
I was listening to it today, kind of like led
Zeppelin Black Crows.
Speaker 1: Nice little mix up there. Yeah, it's good, really good.
I love the part in the song where John at
the top of his range screams woo like like a train,
you know, like the sound of a train. Yeah, all right,
it's a great song. I enjoy it. I'm loving it. Yeah, exciting,
feel good song. Yep. Okay, next song it's called Wild
is the Wind.
Speaker 2: I just gotta say I am a sucker for the
Spanish style guitar.
Speaker 1: I love, love, love it.
Speaker 2: Talked about first song that bon Jovie learned. First song
that I learned was House of the Rising Sun. It
has a very Spanish guitar kind of chord progression, and
this beginning is awesome. I love it, and I love
the transition that they made. I love the music that
is behind the lyrics and the song, and I love
the lyrics to the song me.
Speaker 3: Know.
Speaker 2: But for some reason, to me, the lyrics and this
and the music don't seem like they belong together. I
don't know what it is. I can't put my finger
on it. It just doesn't sound quite right. It doesn't
sound quite like they fit. And so I wanted to
love the song because I loved all of the components,
but it was one that I just kind of left
me going up that wasn't just wasn't quite right.
Speaker 1: Okay. To me, this song feels like a lot of
the stuff that's on the Young Guns two soundtrack that
we get a couple of years later. It has that
sort of Western maybe Southwest cowboy type of feel. The
Spanish guitar definitely has that feel to it. Okay. So
here's the story with this song. When they got done
with their thirty demos, Bruce Fairbairn got all the teenagers
he knew and babysitters and friends and friends of kids
and kids friend they put together their little pizza parlor jury.
And when they did it, John asked everyone listening, say,
all right, we're gonna listen to these songs. I want
you to rank them. Which ones you think are the best? Okay?
You know what got number one, Born to Be My Baby?
You know what got number two, Stick to Your Guns,
which we'll talk about here in a second, okay. And
number three was Wild is the Wind Wow? And John
was like, Wow, he was really blown away. He's like,
people really like those songs, and John was like, I
didn't think they were going to make the album. Wild
is the Wind is now on the album because of
that little mini pizza parlor jury. Wow.
Speaker 2: It's kind of one of those things that I don't
want to have not heard it. Yeah, I just I
just I feel like it just didn't fit together like.
Speaker 1: I wanted it to. I still love it. I don't care.
I love it. Yeah, Okay, we done with this one, Yeah,
all right. Next song is a song called Ride Cowboy, Ride.
Speaker 5: Camel Ride.
Speaker 6: On the sound on Jokus bevery Round.
Speaker 2: So this beginning with the sound of a record like
you hear the scratch of the record as the as
the needle drops right and you've got that chord at
the beginning. I immediately thought of Pink Floyd Wish You
Were Here, because that's basically the same beginning you've got
that it changes. It's a totally different sounding song past
that first chord, but the record needle and the strum
of the guitar where it sounds like it's not a
good recording and it's off in the distance that is
straight out of wish you were here.
Speaker 1: I can see where you feel that way. Yeah for sure.
So that was recorded in mono sound. This is not
really a song. I mean, it's just kind of an intro.
I would call it an intro to Stick to Your.
Speaker 2: Guns, right, which is again the same kind of thing.
Once Wish you Were Here picks up, it becomes a
full fledged song. It's not that mono distant sound that
this song has, but it's still good.
Speaker 1: I still like it. Yeah, it's good. Apparently this was
the original intention was for it to be a full song,
but they just could never finish it, and so they
had this kind of course that they liked Ride Cowboy Ride.
They just didn't have a song with it, but they
thought it was good enough to stick on the album
as an intro to Stick to your Guns.
Speaker 2: So there's a song called Ride Sally Ride by Al Green.
Speaker 5: And everybody would say one.
Speaker 2: Of those tape shit they pulled out whenever they're in
their writing.
Speaker 1: Sessions, the Sally Ride that sounds dead on. Yeah. Okay,
So do you know who is credited as writing the song? Oh?
Speaker 2: It is this the one that's Captain Kidd.
Speaker 1: Captain Kidd and the King of Swing which are.
Speaker 2: The code names the nicknames for bon Jovi and Richie Simbora.
Speaker 1: Yes, flashback to last week's episode. The lyrics of let
It Rock mention the King of Swing and the Captain
kidd All right, now we're onto a song called stick
to Your Guns.
Speaker 2: So they really are hitting the cowboy thing on the
side of the tape. Yeah, for sure, very western in
there's I think they're trying to capture that lightning in
a bottle from One and Dead or Alive.
Speaker 1: Absolutely agree with you.
Speaker 2: And I gotta say I love this song. I don't
love it like I love One and Dead or Alive.
Speaker 1: But this is still a really good song, fantastic song.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised this was not a single, not a hit.
It is single worthy and had the radio been blasting
it all the time when I was a kid, I
probably would have fallen in love with it.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, this is single worthy. This would have
been a big hit with a big concert and video.
The interesting line in this is when you spit you
better mean it. Yeah, definitely. This is this album's wanted
Dead or Alive or Blaze of Glory. Not quite there,
but it was the attempt. Yeah, I would call this
one of my most favorite under the radar Bonjovi songs
for sure, love it, love it. Like we said earlier,
this song was one of those songs that may not
have made the cut of the album if it hadn't
been for the make shift pizza parlor jury that Bruce
Fairbairn organized. Right, stick your Guns. Great song. Next song,
I'll be there.
Speaker 3: For you.
Speaker 1: All right. This song was released April fourth of eighty
nine and it hit number one May thirteenth of eighty nine.
Speaker 2: So we've got this interesting beginning where, unlike the blues
and cowboy songs, we've got a sitar, very South Asia
sound going on at the beginning of the song. But
that's over pretty quickly and we jump right back into
a very slow blues song and I love it.
Speaker 1: It takes a little while for this song to build
after the guitar solo, it's full on, great.
Speaker 2: Power ballad, fantastic lyrics again, I'll be there for you
these five words I swear to you when you breathe,
I want to be the air for you. I'll be
there for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2: Steal the sun from the sky for.
Speaker 1: You in order to fully appreciate this song. I think
you have to watch the video. So you have the
guys on stage kind of like living on a prayer.
It's pre concert, and then it kind of moves into
concert footage of Wembley Stadium and it's packed and people
are crammed in there and that their height of popularity.
And at the key change, once again we have the
standard bon Jovi massive key change. In this song. There's
a girl who's weeping, like crying because she's seeing bon
Jovi and it's it's kind of a touching moment in
the video and I'm a sucker for that, but it
looks it just looks awesome.
Speaker 2: And it's it's a perfectly put together song in all ways.
I cannot there's no fault I can find with this song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this song is this album's never say Goodbye. Yeah,
this one went on a few mixtapes as well, make
out mix tapes. Make this one slid over to the
eighty nine version, but yeah, you're on the right track.
That brings us to the song ninety nine in the shade.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, we started playing a Beach Boys album.
Speaker 1: Just now, what's going on here? What's this chorus?
Speaker 2: What what's this harmony going on here? Oh okay, here
we go. Here's bon Jovi. Sorry, furn enough with fever. Yeah,
that's standard bon Jovi. Oh wait, Tommy and Gina are back.
Speaker 1: I'man Gina about it. I mean, Gena, I'm living on
a prayer. Yes, they actually make a reappearance in this
song and then later again, as we said.
Speaker 7: And that's my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So this one's about going on with the buddies. This
is Tommy can come as long as Gina says, it's
all right.
Speaker 1: This is about hanging out with your buds, cruising down
to the beach and those sort of endless summer nights
of hanging out and having fun. Tell me what's not
appealing about this song? I love it. I mean it's
it's all about having summer nights, endless summer nights. We
gotta cover Richard Marks one of these days.
Speaker 2: I was really thinking about Grease. But okay, sure.
Speaker 1: This is a fun one. This is one of the
weaker tracks on the album, but it's still funnest.
Speaker 2: Oh I love this No, I love this song. It's great.
This is an there's strong song compared to the other
song for the album. No it's not a chart topping hit,
but it's still very very good, still a great song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun. Nine and nine in the shade, not
a skipper, lots of fun all right. That brings us
to the last track on the album. This song is
called Love for.
Speaker 7: Sale hit me all right?
Speaker 1: What do you think?
Speaker 2: I freaking love it?
Speaker 1: Another train song.
Speaker 2: You get that awesome harmonica in there, pulling from the
blues again, and then the lyrics that come in are
just what you want them to.
Speaker 1: Be, right, Yeah, woke up this morning, rode out of bed.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: It's fun, it's it's acoustic, it's bluesy.
Speaker 2: It's it's very much like they're in a jam session. Yeah,
like they're just, you know, let's just lay down something
that sounds like a train again and see where it goes.
And they had a nice little finish to this one.
Speaker 1: This one reminds me of the end.
Speaker 2: Of Back in Black, where they where they suddenly surprise
you with again a completely different sounding song and a good.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about rock and roll. Lai's solution. Yes, rock
am roll. Yeah, here's the thing. I've listened to the demos,
the extended version of New Jersey and there are other
songs that are better than Love for Sale that could
have easily kicked it off. But I'm glad it made it.
It's fun. You can tell they're having a good time
recording this that John actually laughs while he's singing. Right, So,
I'm I think it's great. I love it. John says,
I feel like a dog that's been kicked in the head,
and Richie goes ouch. Yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 2: We've been living together three years, two hours, twenty minutes,
maybe four hundred beers. And you know that this is
a song about the band, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: This was the only song that was recorded in New Jersey.
Everything else was recorded in Vancouver.
Speaker 2: Great end. It's a great end to the album.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's not going to be a radio single,
not probably a top one hundred hit, but it's still fun. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It is one of the I feel like there are
some songs that they they're like, let's just do this
for the fans. Sure, because if you love bon Jovi,
you're gonna love listening to them do this little jam SESSI.
Speaker 1: At this time they really had the minus touch. They
could have released anything and it would have been a hit.
Speaker 2: They made some I mean, honestly, they had a lot
of skeptics wondering if they could do what they did again,
and they knocked it out of the park.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're moving into final judgment.
Speaker 2: Now I think we can, don't you. Yeah, well maybe
maybe we have a story to tell though before we
get to final judgment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, we got two stories to tell.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we talked about the Moscow Music Peace Festival.
Speaker 1: So the Moscow Peace Festival was how Doc McGee would
have got off. He got bon Jovi, he got the Scorpions,
he got Ozzie Osbourne, he got skid Row, you got Cinderella.
He got all these guys together to go over to
Moscow and play this music festival.
Speaker 2: Right, and the foundation that he put together to make
a difference foundation was an anti drug foundation. And if
you know the history of any of these bands, you
gotta be going.
Speaker 1: Huh right, what right?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Exqueeze me?
Speaker 2: I listened to Snake Sabo's talk about the getting on
the plane and he said, the only guys that were
sober was Motley Crue. It's just that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't even make sense. It makes sense he gets on
the plane.
Speaker 2: He's like, how do they get all of this booze
on the plane. And of course, you know, this was
just after Girls, Girls, Girls, and Nicky six dies twice
and they finally were like, you good, get these guys
into rehab and so they were actually clean. Everybody else
was partying, yep, their butts off. And then there's this rumor, rumor,
mind you, that the CIA might have been involved in
this because of Doc McGee's criminal stuff and saw it
as an opportunity to propagandize the Soviet Union. I mean,
actually it was during this festival that the Scorpions wrote
Wind of Change, which is about the changing perceptions that
were going on in the Soviet Union at that time.
And then literally the Berlin Wall comes down within a
few months and the Soviet Union disbands dissolves within a
few months. So who knows.
Speaker 1: If you want a really interesting podcast to listen to,
go listen to Wind of Change. It's about the song
Wind of Change by the Scorpions, but it revolves around
the Moscow Piece Festival, so very interesting. After you get
done listening to this one, go listen to that. Yeah,
all right, So the Moscow Piece Festival was I believe
August twelfth and thirteenth of nineteen eighty nine. Then just
a few weeks later, on September this six, nineteen eighty nineties,
John and Richie perform at the nineteen eighty nine MTV
Music Awards and they come out with just their acoustic
guitars and they knock out a version of Living on
a Prayer and Wanted Dead or Alive. That absolutely blows
people away this series.
Speaker 5: It shad.
Speaker 1: No power techniques, no big band, just two guys and
two guitars, and that performance actually leads to MTV Unplucked.
People were really impressed by that performance. And then on
September fourteenth, just one week later, I saw bon Jovi
in Tulsa, Oklahoma with everybody in my high school and
it was one of the greatest nights of my high
school life.
Speaker 2: So while you were going through that experience, I mean,
I mean, it's amazing that they went from Moscow Music
Piece Festival within a few weeks to the MTV amazing
performance that they had, and then a couple of weeks
after that, they're in Tulsa, Oklahoma and you're watching them live.
So that MTV Video Music Awards. I've said it before,
Wanted Dead or Alive is the reason that I started
playing guitar. It was that version that made me go,
I have to learn how to do what he's doing.
And it was one of the once. I mean, that's
not an easy beginning for a brand new guitarist to play.
It took probably another year or two before I got there,
but that was my objective, was I'm going to learn
how to play just so that I can learn how
to play Want a Dead or Alive?
Speaker 1: Amazing? Yeah, kind of an impactful pocket in time for
both you and I.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy, isn't it incredible?
Speaker 1: All Right, let's talk final judgment, New Jersey versus Slippery
When Wet.
Speaker 2: You go first?
Speaker 1: All right, I love both of these albums. I've told
you before. These are two of the four pillar albums
in my life. I certainly don't see anything unseating them.
It's New Jersey, it's Slippery when Wet, It's thriller, and
it's hysteria for me. Okay, everybody else is a little
bit different. But when I listen to all these songs,
for me, Slippery when Wet has songs like You Give
Love a Bad Name, has songs like Living on a Prayer,
which we said maybe the best song of the nineteen eighties.
Want a Dead or a Live maybe one of the
greatest eighties rock songs. So you have those three massive
pillars from that album, and then you have tons of
great songs. There's no throwaway tracks. Now you switch over
to New Jersey. You've got five top ten hits. Let
your hand. I mean, you've got Bad Medicine, You've got
Born to Be My Baby, you got Living in Sin,
You've got Abby there for you. You've got a couple of
weird ones like Love for Sale and Ride Cowboy Ride.
But for me, I think I'm gonna have to say
that Slippery when Wet is probably the better album of
the two. But New Jersey is my favorite album. I
can't divorce my nostalgic feelings from that time of my life.
But I'm going with my favorite album. New Jersey Rap.
Speaker 2: You totally threw me for a loop. I did not
expect you to do that, son of a guy. Okay,
I'm struggling. I'm still struggling. I'm back in the Buldeerham
Major League. Which one of these things is better? And
it is almost too difficult to say, so New Jersey
lots of nostalgia, just like you. I had that album.
I remember it in my I remember listening to that
tape over and over again for years. For years, I
would listen to that tape. And if you look at
the album as a whole, it has less song. It's
every single song is at least good. You know, there
are no bad songs on the album. There's the only
one that I mentioned before, as Wild as the Wind,
that just didn't it. I loved each part of it.
It just didn't seem to mesh together like it was
supposed to for me. But beyond that, every other single
song on the album is good.
Speaker 1: And you have.
Speaker 2: More chart topping songs off of this album than you
do off of Slippery When Wet, and they're amazing. They're timeless,
bad medicine. Lay your hands on me. I'll be there
for you. I mean, there are so many timeless songs.
But if I've got to pick, if I got I'm
thinking of a thinging of you.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If I'm walking out the door and I got to
pick one CD to take with me, which one of
it is going to be, it's got to be Slippery
One Wet. You just can't overcome the power of you
give love a bad name, living on a prayer, wanted
debt or alive. I mean, it's just it's too iconic
in my my nostalgic period to not give the nod
to Slippery One Wet.
Speaker 1: For me for sure, fantastic, fantastic, and I can't blame
you at all. Yeah, I got no problem with that.
Two fantastic albums. We love them both. Yeah. Please, we
want to hear from you guys. Which one do you
think is the best? Is it Slippery One Web from
nineteen eighty six? Is it New Jersey from nineteen eighty eight?
Is it Keep the Faith? Hey? Keep the Faith is
one that I would love to cover at some point.
Speaker 2: It's another great album. It's another tape that I had
that I would make out to all the time.
Speaker 1: Let's hear from you guys. Ride us in email us,
go to our Facebook page, to our page, go to
our Patreon page. Let's hear from you guys.
Speaker 2: Let me just say, if you've made it this far,
we can't tell you how much we appreciate you. You
guys are awesome. If you can do one thing for us,
tell somebody that you know about our podcast that you
think might like it. Do you know somebody who loves
music from the eighties and nineties? Do you know somebody
who loves movies from the eighties and nineties. If so,
just let them know because the more the more clicks
we get on that subscribe button, the more people find
out about us. So please, please, please let folks know.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, we will see you next week.