Behind the Songs: Bon Jovi, Bret Michaels, Guns N Roses

Jon Bon Jovi and Bon Jovi

I Got the Girl is from the Bon Jovi’s seventh studio album Crush (2000) and it is about Jon Bon Jovi’s daughter Stephanie Rose.

Sample Lyrics:

It feels like I’m walkin’ on air
When we walk down our street
When the neighbors stop to watch us walk by
You can hear ’em talking (let them talk)
Sometimes I think that you’re the only reason
The sun still shines (when it shines)
And when this wicked world starts bringing me down
I tell myself that I’m one lucky guy

I got the girl (with all the cards)
I got the girl (she’s a work of art)
I got the girl (who’s gonna break my heart)

August 7, 4:15 is from Jon Bon Jovi’s second solo album Destination Anywhere (1997). The song was inspired by the death of Jon’s tour manager’s 6-year-old daughter. She was found dead in a vacant lot. Jon was understandably terrified; being the father of 2 at the time (he and his wife had 2 more kids later).

Sample Lyrics:

“Tell me it was just a dream – August 7 4:15
God closed His eyes and the world got mean
August 7 4:15

I know tonight that there’s an angel
Up on Heaven’s highest hill
And no one there can hurt you baby
No one ever will
Somewhere someone’s conscience is like a burning bed
The flames are all around you
How you gonna sleep again”

Janie Don’t You Take Your Love to Town is also from Destination Anywhere. It was written after Jon Bon Jovi had a fight with his wife, Dorothea Hurley. They were high school sweethearts. With the exception of a break where Dorothea left Jon, thinking she can’t handle the rock star lifestyle and during which Jon dated actress Diane Lane, they have been together since their high school years. They got married in 1989.

Sample Lyrics:

“Sitting here while you’re fast asleep
In the bathroom by the sink
Trying to write the right words down
I turn out the lights, close my eyes
There ain’t no prayers or kiss goodnight
What I’ll forget to say tomorrow, I’ll say now
Janie don’t you take your love to town

Janie don’t you take your love to town
Janie don’t you take your love to town”

Bed of Roses is from Bon Jovi’s fifth studio album Keep the Faith (1992). It is one of the band’s most famous ballads. When asked which song Jon wrote for his wife Dorothea, he answers Bed of Roses. But because Bed of Roses talks about a guy being with one girl in the bed and thinking about the one he really loves, it caused speculations that Jon cheated on his wife. However Jon was quoted to say “Plus, being married and monogamous, it’s (intimate scenes in his movies) the closest thing I can do without getting in trouble for it. . . The only thing I like more than my wife is my money, and I’m not about to lose that to her and her lawyers, that’s for . . . sure.”

Sample Lyrics:

“Sitting here wasted and wounded at this old piano
Trying hard to capture the moment this morning I don’t know
Cause a bottle of vodka is still lodged in my head
And some blond gave me nightmares, think that she’s still in my bed
As I dream about movies they won’t make of me when I’m dead

With an ironclad fist I wake up and French kiss the morning
While some marching band keeps it’s own beat in my head while we’re talking
About all of the things that I long to believe about love, the truth, what you mean to me
And the truth is. . . baby you’re all that I need

I wanna lay you down in a bed of roses
For tonight I’ll sleep on a bed of nails
I want to be just as close as your Holy Ghost is
And lay you down on a bed of roses”

Jars of Clay is a Christian rock band founded in 1993, in Nashville. Two hands is from the band’s tenth studio album The Long Fall Back to Earth. It was released in 2009 and the song is the last song the band wrote for the album and it is supposed to be a bridge between the different themes of religion, relationships and social justice featured in the album.

Sample Lyrics:

I’ve been living out of sanity
I’ve been splitting hairs and blurring lines
I am a house that is divided
In my heart and in my mind

I use one hand to pull you closer
The other to push you away
If I had two hands doing the same thing
Lifted high, lifted high

Bret Michaels
Raine — Poison front man Bret Michaels wrote it for his daughter Raine. The song is from Bret Michaels’ 2003 solo album Songs of Life. Raine was born in 2000.Bret has another daughter born in 2005, named Jorja Bleu.

Guns N’ Roses
Welcome to the Jungle — is one of the biggest Guns N’ Roses hits to date. It is from the 1987’s debut Guns N’ Roses album Appetite for Destruction. The Jungle in the title represents Los Angeles, as someone said “Welcome to the Jungle” when he first arrived in L.A. The song was chosen as the greatest hard rock song ever by the music channel VH1 in 2009. The song was written in record time, in a couple of hours.

Out ta Get Me is also from Appetite for Destruction and it is about Axl’s relationship with the law. — Axl was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana until he was 17 (and left town to move to Los Angeles). He was arrested for over 30 times, most of the incidents being in Indiana. His charges included assault charges and drunken, disorderly behavior.