#50 - Bed of Roses

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Keep the Faith, Crossroad, This Left Feels Right
Other Versions: Live Unplugged from the Yokohama 2003 set (that was recorded to be our acoustic cd/dvd set but we got TLFR instead), Cama de Rosas
Era: 90s "moody rock"

Lyrics (Original)
Lyrics (TLFR)
Lyrics (Spanish)

Taken literally, this is a terrible love song. He cheats on her, the whole focus is on him the whole song, he actually implies he doesn't feel a need to actually show he loves her ("got nothing to prove, it's you I'd die to defend"), he hangs up to cheat on her again, then gets drunk in a bar while still hungover and flirts with the bartender.

But taking this literally would be a mistake, because the way Jon means this, the sentiment there, it is one of the great love songs of our generation. He loves, absolutely adores the woman he is singing about. Everything but mentions of her is sung in such a way it becomes mundane, you can actually audibly hear how much he loves her.

"As I dream about movies they won't make of me when I'm dead" is probably the most open, honest lyric ever. I love how much is behind that one line - his need for the spotlight, his acknowledgement that he wants there to be movies made about him, and the fact that they won't make them just enhancing his realization that love, this woman he's in love with, that's what's going to matter in the end. Simplistic, but absolutely loaded.

Instrumentally, this song is absolutely epic. Richie's strings just sweep you along and soar, dragging you in - the perfect musical representation of how intense this love is. And I've been heard to say before that David's piano work in "Bed of Roses" is one of my top five favorite things on earth. Listen to this three times through - once, focus on the vocals. Then the guitar. Then the piano. They're different, but the way they work together turns this song into love you can listen to. What's interesting is, if you don't know Spanish, the emotion and sentiment still come across in "Cama de Rosas". That's how well they use the vocal tone - Jon's voice here is, essentially, an instrument.

I do know a little Spanish, by the way, and there are two things I love about the Spanish version.

1. When translated back to English, the first line is "Alone and so sad I am, as an old piano", which I thing is even more heartbreakingly real than the original first line
2. The chorus, which translates back to English as "I want to have your love among wine and roses / to forget at last the pain of yesterday / Close to you / To be your name / To be your shadow / to have your love in your bed of roses", is gorgeous.
   

The drums are subtle here, but where they show up they show up. I'm totally incapable of listening to the part where it's gone quiet, then BANG the drums kick back in while Jon bellows "nothing to prove / for it's you I'd die to defend", without playing air drums. Or desk drums, or my leg-drums, or nearest-person's-head drums. Those drums take what Jon is literally saying - I don't need to actually show that I love you, because I know I love you and that's ok - and picks it up to a point where the strength of his conviction is such that, dammit, now I know you love me so go ahead and don't worry about proving it.

This is one song where I just can't get behind any of the different versions. Because of the fact that the lyrics depend so heavily on the instrumentation to convey the real meaning behind them, changing the instrumentation changes the song too much. That works with, say, "Born to Be My Baby" and "It's My Life", the TLFR versions of those took these rocking songs and bared the real strong emotion behind them. Acoustic versions of "Bed of Roses" tend to, in my opinion, just sound like the emotion's been watered down. This is a great love song, and the greatness lies in the intensity. Take that away and you've got a drunk rock star's feeble attempts to justify his drunken affairs. Just try to keep from melting at the thought.

My Rating: 10/10