#17 - It's Just Me

Artist: Jon Bon Jovi
Album: Destination Anywhere
Other Versions: None
Era: Jon's pretentiousish phase

Lyrics

I don't like this one. For a lot of different reasons - one being I just plain old don't like it, for some intangible reason.

The instrumentation in this song is boring. It's a low tempo, low emotion ballad and it just does nothing to interest me or draw attention. It's just kind of there, binding Jon to this tempo that, when mixed with the low, borderline I-don't-care voice he uses for this song, saps any would-be emotion right out of the whole thing.

And that voice - I like Jon's low voice, I do. But this is more of a "yeah I just kind of happen to be singing these words I have no emotional investment in la la la" voice than the passionate one that usually graces the lower notes. And when the singer doesn't care, it's hard for me to care. He tends to drone a bit. It does match the instrumentation very well, but in this case that's actually a negative because the instrumentation is boring.

I don't like the lyrics to this one either. The typical BJ love song is "I need you desperately", so maybe this was a purposeful attempt to show that "Jon" is not "Bon Jovi" by doing something totally different. The way this song comes across is "you need me", which is such an asshole Lifetime-movie-abusive-husband kind of thing to say. The movie that was made based on this album is about a struggling couple, so maybe that fits, but if it's supposed to be an asshole kind of declaration, then it doesn't fit the tone at all. The other option is it's "I really want you to need me", which does fit the tone but it's just too whiny-desperate to make me care. The only song that's ever worked with that message is Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and that's because the song is so light-hearted it doesn't actually come across as a desperately needy person.

"It's Just Me" is pretentious, whiny, boring crap. If his purpose was to show he isn't just Bon Jovi's lead singer, that he can be different, he certainly accomplished that. I doubt he wanted "...in the worst way possible" to get attached to "Jon breaks away from typical Bon Jovi..." in the cd reviews.

My Rating: 1/10

Edited 3/25/06: Added lyrics