Tune Tuesday

Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet album turns 40 today!! This was truly one of the biggest albums when I was growing up.

There was no shortage of hits on it, either. I have written on a few of them in the past. Today, here’s a song that I have yet to feature. If this one doesn’t grab you from the cold open, nothing will. I remember it cutting through the fade of another song at a school dance. It screams “Hey! Listen to me!” Of course, you know now that I’m talking about “You Give Love A Bad Name.”

From Songfacts:

Jon Bon Jovi, Desmond Child and Richie Sambora wrote this in the basement of Sambora’s mother’s house in New Jersey. Child came up with the title, and Jon immediately thought up the first line (“Shot through the heart…”). From there, they put the rest of the song together, with “Shot Through The Heart” as the working title. The song ended up being about a guy whose girlfriend is really bad for him – common material, but a very interesting way to say it. Jon Bon Jovi dated actress Diane Lane in the mid-’80s, and there were rumors that she was the inspiration for this song, but the lyrical inspiration was more of a universal feeling.

One thing that I found interesting was that at one point, this was intended for the group Loverboy! I guess they would have done an ok job with it, but it is hard to imagine. Anyway, Bon Jovi and Sambora started out writing it for them, but liked it so much they thankfully kept it for themselves.

The Slippery When Wet album was recorded in Vancouver with producer Bruce Fairbairn, who had a studio there. At first, the album was going to be called Wanted (after the song “Wanted Dead or Alive,” but when they tried to do an Old West Photoshoot, they didn’t come up with anything good.

According to Songfacts, the inspiration for the new title needed some “bare” influence …

Needing a new title and theme, inspiration struck at a strip club they went to after recording sessions: the No. 5 Orange club in the Gastown district, which had a shower to water the dancers. A shoot was set up at a beach in New Jersey where the band washed cars with girls dressed in T-shirts with the album title, and not much else. A shot of one of these ladies was planned for the cover, but it proved too risqué, so they ended up using a shot of a wet garbage bag with the title written on it in marker – that was Jon Bon Jovi’s idea.

You Give Love a Bad Name reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on November 29, 1986, and became the band’s first number-one hit. 

40 years old! As if I didn’t need help feeling old ….