#4 - Please Come Home for Christmas

Artist: Jon Bon Jovi
Albums: A Very Special Christmas 2, A Very Special Christmas Live
Other Versions: the original is by the Eagles (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong), I don't know the specifics of any other covers but I'm sure they exist
Era: Christmas

This is a dangerous song for me to listen to in public, it has a couple "uncontrollable sing-along" lines, the kind of lines you just start singing when you hear them before you realize what you're doing and where. Examples include the "Tonight, thank God it's them instead of you" line in "Do They Know it's Christmastime?" and "Some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues" in Journey's "Don't Stop Believing". In this song, the intial "Bells will be ringing" line and "choirs will be singing si-ilent night" always get me going, much to the chagrin of anyone within hearing distance.

Man this song is depressing. It's fun to sing, but to sing you have to pay attention to the lyrics and when you do that it makes you sad. But singing usually makes me happy. So it's kind of a vicious cycle I get into with this song. I definitely like this version better than the original - it's more intense, more passionate, you feel like he means it more. Plus I like Jon's voice better.

It's decent - not stellar, but it did manage to avoid the usual cover problems of
a) being a note-for-note copy of the original with no innovation or differences
b) being so different it's terrible
so points for that. And the aforementioned singability. Also the video is the only time I've ever been jealous of a Santa hat, Cindy Crawford, and Jon Bon Jovi all at the same time.

My Rating: 8/10