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97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda it was a.

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Song that Jon Bon Jovi had to admit that he was wrong about. It took serious convincing for him to agree to put what became Bon Jovi's signature song on their third album, a make or break album for the band. Newsflash, they made it and the song does what only a very big monster hit song can get in your head and stay there probably forever. It also tells a story about a couple of kids, Tommy and Gina, the first in a series of songs in which the couple would appear. Let's get into the story of living on a prayer in this episode of the behind the Song podcast. If you like it, give it a thumbs up and hit. Subscribe and let us know in the comments. Livin on a Prayer was the second smash hit single released on the Slippery When Wet album, which hit the stores in August of 1986. A little recap on where Bon Jovi were positioned career wise at that time. Back in 1982, Jon Bon Jovi got a job just up the road from his native Sayreville, New Jersey, working at Power Station recording studio in Manhattan. Now Power Station was co owned by his second cousin Tony Bongiovi, whose production and engineering credits include releases from Jimi Hendrix, the Talking Heads, the Ramones and many more. Access to the recording studio gave Jon Bon Jovi the ability to record demos of some songs that he'd written with studio musicians who were working on other projects at Power Station at the time, including Roy Bitton from Springsteen's E Street Band, who's featured on one of those Bon Jovi demos. Runaway Runaway really started it all for Bon Jovi because that demo became a regional hit after it was included on an unsigned artist compilation put together by radio station wapp, a suburban New York station that Jon Bon Jovi had visited to do some on air jingles for that was one of his day gigs at the time. Runaway began to pick up steam regionally on the radio and Jon Bon Jovi assembled a band to tour behind it, and all that led to a label deal and a management deal with kiss manager Doc McGee. The self titled Bon Jovi debut hit stores to moderate success in 1984, as did their second album, 7,800 degrees Fahrenheit, which came out in 85. So the third album was really crucial for the band. They now had something to prove, so they decided to bring in a songwriter to help shape the album into a hit maker and Desmond Child was brought on for the job. Child had a BA in music education from NYU under his belt and he'd been around the block himself in terms of being a musician. He was in a band in the late 70s called Desmond Child and Rouge, which included his girlfriend as a backup singer. That's an important note that I'll come back to in just a minute. Child's songwriting career took off in 1978 when Kiss had an international no. 1 hit with I Was Made for Lovin youn, which Child co wrote for the band. That and his proximity to the Kiss camp by way of manager Doc McGee got him on the project for Bon Jovi's third album. He ended up co writing four of the songs, including the first single youe Give Love A Bad Name, which also went to number one on the chart to get together to write for Slippery When Wet. Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child hunkered down in Sambora's parents basement in New Jersey in what Child described as a little wooden house at the end of a cul de sac on the edge of a marsh overlooking an oil refinery. The three had never met, but when they emerged from that basement, all of their lives would change forever. The main characters in Living on a Prayer, Tommy and Gina, are now embedded in Bon Jovi history. Gina was actually based on Desmond Child's ex girlfriend, Maria Vidal. She was one of the three female singers who sang in his band Desmond Child and Rouge. She waited tables in a New York City diner to make ends meet while Child held down a job as a cab driver. Back in those days, before he started writing hits for other people, Vidal's friends called her Gina because she looked like the Italian film actress Gina Lollobrigida. When Child first wrote the lyrics, the other character in the song was named Johnny, which was from Child's birth name, John Charles Barrett. So the couple in the song was originally called Johnny and Gina. But Johnny wouldn't really work because of the fact that Bon Jovi's name is Jon and it would have sounded like he was singing about, well, himself. So Jonny was changed to Tommy and suddenly one of the most famous couples in pop music culture had their names. Livin on a Prayer starts like a fairy tale, which it kind of is. And it goes like this. Once upon a time, not so long ago, Tommy used to work on the docks. Union's been on strike. He's down on his luck. It's tough, so tough. Gina works the diner all day, working for her man she brings home her pay for love she says we've got to hold on to what we've got it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not We've got each other and that's a lot for love we'll give it a shot Two working class people trying to make it holding on to each other through it all It's a storyline that runs close to Bon Jovi's Jersey roots. Springsteen made a career out of telling these kinds of stories in his songs about regular folks, and when the chorus kicks in, it explodes in all the right ways with the woes sung at full throttle we're halfway there Living on a prayer Take my hand we'll make it, I swear Living on a prayer and then it's on to part two, Tommy's Story Tommy's got his six string in hock now he's holding in when he used to make it Talk so tough, it's tough Gina dreams of running away when she cries in the night Tommy whispers Baby, it's okay someday so in basically two verses, you have it who these characters are, what their troubles are, and what they tell each other to get through it. The bridge and the chorus repeats, telling you to hold on ready or not Live for the fight when that's all that you've got because you're halfway there Living on a prayer with plenty of woes thrown in to punctuate every fist pumping line. When Living On A Prayer was released, it did something no other song had ever done and Bon Jovi became the first hard rock band to go to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with consecutive singles. Slippery When Wet was the best selling album of 1987 and it's referred to as the first hard rock album that turned the genre into something accessible for pop music fans. It changed the game and paved the way for the Hair Band era that followed. As for Tommy and Gina, they would make their return in Bon Jovi's 1988 single Born to Be My Baby, which Jon Bon Jovi has said is the sequel to Living on a prayer. And on 99 in the shade, another song from the New Jersey album Tommy and Gina are name checked in the lyrics, Tommy's coming down tonight if Gina says it's all right. And on the song It's My Life, released in 2000, they're name checked again. When Bon Jovi sings the song is for Tommy and Gina, who never back down. So in that way, unlike with Jack and Diane by John Mellencamp, you get sequels to the story of these two characters, which I really appreciate knowing how they fare as the years go on. And here's a couple of fun notes about Slippery When Wet. The album was recorded in Vancouver at Little Mountain Studio under the hand of one of the producers who marked this era with a pummeling approach to pop music, Bruce Fairburn. He went on to handle the same duties for Aerosmith's second wave of chart toppers Permanent Vacation, Pump and Get A Grip, among many other credits on chart topping albums. By the way, Desmond Child also went on to write hit songs on Aerosmith's comeback albums, and he's written hits for everybody from Alice Cooper to Ricky Martin and then some. Anyway, the Vancouver setting of the recording of Slippery When Wet was key to the album's title. It was named after the band took to visiting the local strip club in which the dancers would descend from the ceiling on poles into the crowd. Hey, it was the 80s. And here's another fun fact. Mike Reno of Canada's Lover Boy says that his backing vocals appear on Livin On a Prayer. Loverboy was recording at the same time at the same studio in Vancouver, and he says that it wasn't uncommon to get the request from another band to come by and sing a backing vocal. He said that it's also just as likely that members of Bon Jovi recorded backing vocals on Lover Boy's Wild side album, Just Gang Vocals to lend a hand, no money exchanged or credits given. And here's another fun fact about Slippery When Wet that shows how serious the Bon Jovi camp was about this album being a hit. The writing sessions yielded over 30 songs, which were then auditioned for a group of teenagers from New York and New Jersey to gauge their reaction to the music. The track listing and the order of the songs were based on the opinions of that focus group. Weirdly, Jon Bon Jovi thought so little of Living on a Prayer that it took their producer Bruce Fairburn, to really push to get it onto the Slippery When Wet album. In an episode of the docuseries thank youk the Bon Jovi Story, it's revealed that Richie Sambora and Desmond Child actually begged on their knees for Bon Jovi to record the song at all. Jon Bon Jovi said that until the bass line was added, the the song sounded like a throwaway to him, and that he thought it would be more suited for a movie soundtrack, not the number one Billboard hit that it became. He now admits that he was completely and utterly wrong about the song. In 2008, Desmond Child was inducted into the Songwriters hall of Fame, and he serves on its board of directors, soon to follow. In 2009, Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora were also inducted into the Songwriters hall of Fame. Richie Sambora shocked fans when he up and quit the band while they were on tour in 2013. The reason he gave was that he needed to spend time with his daughter Ava, who was born in 1997 while he was married to Heather Locklear. He said that he has no regrets about leaving the band behind. The only time he has played with Bon Jovi since then was when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 2018. Livin on a Prayer works so well because it doesn't try to be anything other than what it is. It isn't trying to beat you over the head with poetry. It just tells the story and then beats you over the head with the music, the talk box, the layers of sound, the woe woes. It takes peak 80s Springsteen and runs with it, using every production trick in the book that was so very of the moment in the 80s to make make sure that the song sounded perfect, ready to explode out of your radio again and again and again. All killer, no filler. It's no wonder this song has made chart history. And it's no mistake either. Each note, every line painstakingly crafted and then impeccably presented to make Bon Jovi one of the best selling bands in America. A song about two regular people trying to make it so. What other songs about young lovers tell a similar story? Something to think about. Until next time. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you liked this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel. Check it out on TikTok too. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. You can find me on the air at 97.1 FM the Drive in Chicago and at wdrv.com on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.