Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Surely you can't
be serious, get hold.
Speaker 2: Hold hold. 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, folk. Yeah,
we are back today to discuss bon Jovi's fourth studio album,
New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I am so excited to talk about this album. 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, 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?
Speaker 2: She said what she said, let's go oh, that's a
good one.
Speaker 1: She took me and I was the first person that
I knew that owned bon Jovies New Jersey album.
Speaker 2: That's pretty sweet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a sorry. She and I went to lunch
and then she took me to school after lunch. Uh huh,
so I could show it and brag it nice.
Speaker 2: So that is awesome.
Speaker 1: 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 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's seventeen songs that they end up.
Speaker 1: 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, right,
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 War, Yeah, which
you can hear it's on the special Day in 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.
Speaker 2: It, right. And it's interesting. 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 inb 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 comes 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 bonjob.
Speaker 2: Yeah. 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
Fairbairn and back to Vancouver, 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 amb 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.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do a double album.
Speaker 1: Let's do a double album. And again the record company's like, no, no,
it's too expensive. Kids won't buy it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's too much.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Yes, Son of a Beach, Sons of Beaches, Sons of Beaches,
which comes from the song ninety nine in the Shade, right, Okay,
Sons of Beaches.
Speaker 1: It kind of has that naughty word play, that slippery
and what did Okay, But the other title was sixty
eight and I'll Owe you one, Oh My, that that's
it's like a title that Bill and Ted would name
the first Wild Stallions.
Speaker 2: Gosh, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: 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 were ready to get into the track listing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go, all right.
Speaker 1: The first song on the album lay your Hands on It.
Speaker 2: Okay, So they wrote this song in nineteen eighty eight. Okay.
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 coty this.
And I read something actually today from it seems like
it was maybe Ritchie sand Borer'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. Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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 yep, And it's almost an invitation to church. Yes,
it's like the Church of bon Jovi. Yeah, you actually
have female backing singers.
Speaker 2: Yep. Of course this song is phenomenal. Yes, and the
layer hands on Me definitely has that religious like faith
healing kind of emotion going on hands on. 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 1: Let's listen to it. 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 has said,
can I change the lyrics just a little bit to
be become a religious song?
Speaker 2: Uh? Huh?
Speaker 1: And they're like Dolly Parton, heck, yeah you can.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: For a second. Okay, So when you got a formula
at work, why don't you stick with that? I mean,
does Bonjo 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 she was gonna be like, yeah, my
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.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: 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 floors. Video is great, love it.
I want to make mention one other thing in this video.
He's wearing this weird jacket and the only reason I
know this is because he mentioned it in the concert
that I saw until Soo 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.
Speaker 2: Made his big patch. Check. Yep, that's awesome. I had
no idea that was from fans. 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.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: 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 wild
West by the Escape Club.
Speaker 2: I Remember This.
Speaker 1: Yeah, spent twenty weeks on the chart and was featured
in the two thousand and one film Jane Simon Bob
Straight Back Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. 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. Yeah.
It has lost nothing with age.
Speaker 1: It starts right off with a boom like that organ
dun dund dun dun dunt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. 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 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 EMTV. 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. Yeah
that's bon Jovi's brother.
Speaker 1: Oh that's Matt Okay, Yeah, that's cool. Love this song.
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. It's spot
on awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1: 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 1: 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. It's great, it
is it's it's fantastic. 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.
Speaker 2: Hey Doug.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Fine, that's great. So there you go.
Speaker 1: Are we done with bad Medicine? One months down? 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.
Speaker 2: I'm 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 melts together so well.
Speaker 2: And you can't. 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. First time you hear.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: I swear. 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 see, 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 strongly that
if they had left it that same way, it would
have been a number one hit.
Speaker 2: Yephas less bless you want more Nebo because of something
of the.
Speaker 1: Demon And I listened to it and it's still that
same magical, beautiful song, but it's not that oh, that
pomp and rocker.
Speaker 2: That it's certain. 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 Fairbain. 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.
Nine 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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 o 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, fantastic.
Speaker 1: A 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 too.
Speaker 2: They get married in eighty nine.
Speaker 1: I think they eloped.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: So that's great in the Born to Be My Baby video.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, ready.
Speaker 1: We are done with Born to Be My Baby. Let's
move on to the next song. It's called Living in set.
Speaker 2: Less Breach Once again. I gotta say, I think they're
a listen to.
Speaker 1: 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. There's
squeeze 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 on 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 gonna run away and marry this person.
Speaker 2: 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 it 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 slapped anybody, but I would
have been upset in that same situation, right.
Speaker 1: My position has changed over the years on the.
Speaker 2: Leave them Alone, Me Alone? 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.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nostalgia again, I know it hits you right at
that time too, right, Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean eighty eight you were fifteen, eighty nine, sixteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're right there feeling those crazy hormonal emotions
for some girl out there for several I don't.
Speaker 1: Know if I'm capable of divorcing the nostalgia from this album.
I'm just doing the best.
Speaker 2: I can before 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. Yeah. 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 1: Yeah. 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've got to the fans
have got to feel that camaraderie among the band to
really buy in the way that they want them to.
And I think that, you know, I could 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 said they were it was time for
them to be done for a little while. Yeah, it was.
It was a tough little spot right after this album.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Movie is 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 yeah, we each threw
in a ten.
Speaker 2: She took us to this cheap hotel and turned to sentiment.
Speaker 1: Yep, thirty dollars.
Speaker 2: Make you holler because I get paid to do the wild.
Speaker 1: 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, homemound 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.
Speaker 2: Well, and it does that. You know. I talked to
you before about Crossroads. One of the ideas and Crossroads
is you've got to be able to imitate a 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
has a trained sound within 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 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 Bonchovi 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, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's I definitely felt led Zeppelin when I was listening
to it today, kind of like led Zeppelin Black Crows.
Nice little mix up there. Yeah, it's good, really good.
Speaker 1: I love the part 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exciting, feel good song.
Speaker 1: 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. I love, love, love it. 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 cord progression, and this beginning
is awesome. I love it, and I love the transition
that they make. I love the music that is behind
the lyrics and the song, and I love the lyrics
to the song men. 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. Okay.
Speaker 1: 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?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Wow. It's kind of one of those things that I
don't want to have not heard it. Yeah, it just
I just I feel like it just didn't fit together.
Speaker 1: Like I wanted it to. I still love it, Okay,
I love it. Yeah, Okay, we're done with this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: Next song is a song called Ride Cowboy, Ride, Devel, Ride.
Speaker 2: Badgy or the sound.
Speaker 1: On the Cuss Memory 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.
Speaker 2: Kind of an intro.
Speaker 1: I would call it an intro to Stick to your Guns.
Speaker 2: 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. I still like it.
Speaker 1: 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 Greene.
Speaker 1: And everybody would say.
Speaker 2: One of those tapes that they pulled out whenever they're
in their writing.
Speaker 1: Sessions, Sally Ride. That sounds dead on.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you know who is credited as writing
the song?
Speaker 2: Oh? It is this the one that's Captain Kidd.
Speaker 1: Captain Kidd and the King of Swing, which.
Speaker 2: Are 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 this
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 to 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 of Dead or Alive,
but this is still a really good song, fantastic song.
I'm surprised this was not a single, not a hit.
It is single worthy and had the radio have 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 blasel Gory. 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
or the makeshift pizza parlor jury that Bruce Fairburn organized.
Right stick to your Guns. Great song. Next song, I'll
be there for You 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 power.
Speaker 2: Ballad, fantastic lyrics. Again, I'll be there for you. These
five were I swear to you when you breathe, I
want to be the air for you. I'll be there
for you. Yeah, it's so good. Steal the sun from
the sky.
Speaker 1: For 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. Right,
there's a girl who's weeping, like crying because she's seen
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: 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.
Speaker 2: Well, the Makeout mixtape make.
Speaker 1: 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 start playing a Beach Boys album. Just now,
what's going on here? What's this chorus? What what's this
harmony going on here? Oh okay, here we go. Here's
bon Jovi. Sorry, burning up with fever. Yeah, that's standard
bon Jovi. Oh wait, Jina about?
Speaker 1: I mean Jina, are about? 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, and
that's my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. 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?
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: 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 Greece. But okay, sure, this
is a fun one.
Speaker 1: 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 another 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 Sale hit me all right? What do
you think?
Speaker 2: I freaking love it? Another train song. 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 be, right, Yeah, woke up wrote out
of bit. 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 again and see where it goes.
And they they had a nice little finish to this one.
This one reminds me of the end of Back in Black,
where they where they suddenly surprise you with it again.
A completely different sounding song and a good I'm.
Speaker 1: Talking about rock and roll Lawn's solution. Yes, rock adam 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. You know that this is song
about the band, right.
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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's 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, right, because if you love
bon Jovi, you're gonna love listen to them do this
little jam session.
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 that 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 now.
Speaker 2: 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 Banjo, 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? Exqueeze me? I listened to Snake Sabos talk about
the getting on the plane and he said, the only
guys that were sober was Motley Crue. That's just that
doesn't even make sense.
Speaker 1: It makes sense.
Speaker 2: He gets on the plane, 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 room reminds 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 the sixth, nineteen eighty nineties,
John and Ritchie 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 2: To each.
Speaker 1: Shot, no power technics, no big band, just two guys
and two guitars, and that performance actually leads to MTV unpluked, right.
People were really that performance.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: 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: That's 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 You go first? 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 Alive 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
tim hits, lay your hands on me. You've got Bad Medicine,
You've got Born to Be My Baby, You've 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.
Speaker 2: Wrap. You totally threw me for a loop. I did
not expect you to do that, son of a gun. 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 nosalgia. 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. And you have 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 thinking of you out, 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 when Wet. You
just can't overcome the power of you. Give love a
bad name, Living on a prayer, want a 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 for me for.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Please, we want to hear from you, guys. Which one
do you think is the best? Is it Slippery When
Wet from nineteen eighty six, is it New Jersey from
nineteen eighty eight?
Speaker 2: Is it Keep the Faith?
Speaker 1: 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 our Facebook page, go to our Twitter 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 thing.