#42 - The Distance

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Bounce, TLFR (as a live bonus track)
Other Versions: None
Era: early 00s "hard pop"

Lyrics

This is part 1 of a two-part series (or something) to prove to a friend there is no Bon Jovi album I can't pick out a song from that contradicts how I feel overall about the album. Tomorrow I'll write about my least favorite song from These Days.

"Distance" is one of the songs that was on the very first Bon Jovi cd I owned, which was just a compilation of what I could find readily for download (One Wild Night, In and Out of Love, Just Older, Jon singing Respect are some of the others, someday if I can find the cd I'll post the whole list). I loved it then, despite it being really poor quality. I still love it.

This song somehow manages to mix some heaviness with a real light, airy feel and some real emotion and intensity. The intensity really makes it stand out on Bounce, deservedly so.

It's one of those songs where the intro doesn't build in, but in this one it works that way. The intro bangs right in, then the instrumentation mellows out when Jon starts singing. The focus becomes his voice, which could have been bad because the Bounce era was not his finest, but it works out.

I like the sweeping, epic tone to this one. I like the lyrics, I like the instrumentation, I like Jon's voice. I love the happy lightness of the piano in "Distance" and the way it works with the crunchy guitar and the way Jon's voice is so perfectly in between "happy" and "crunchy" that it ties the whole thing together.

The acoustic version on TLFR is good, too. My one complaint about that is for some reason Richie and Jon's voices don't mesh as well as normal. Maybe it was an off night, maybe this song just wasn't meant for anyone but Jon to be prominently vocal. "The Distance" is a very 'each person does their own thing and it comes together' song, so bumping Richie's vocals up actually makes it feel like he's competing with Jon, and that detracts. I love the percussion - I believe it's bells of some kind - in the live version, probably moreso than the drumming in the normal version. I mean, the bells wouldn't fit in the album version, but they work with the acoustic version so perfectly.

It's sweeping and epic and intense and emotional and it works electric or acoustic and it's fun to sing. This one would be a good song on a really strong album, stick it in among the lackluster crap that is most of Bounce, and it practically begs to be adored and clung to, hailed as a sign that there's still some of the rocking "Bad Medicine" Bon Jovi and the intensely emotional "This Ain't A Love Song" Bon Jovi and the good 80s and 90s Bon Jovi in there somewhere, and they can't hide it or kill it.

My Rating: 10/10

Edited 3/25/06: Added lyrics