3 decades of rock, in convenient bite-sized pieces

3.20.2006

#66 - Hey God

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: These Days
Other Versions: None
Era: 90s "moody rock"

Lyrics

Angry Jovi! I like Angry Jovi.

I like the intro to this one. The Dunn dunn dunn da dunn dunn thing and then the guitar picks up. The guitar in this song is some of my favorite of Richie's ever. It's simple but it kind of gives me this image that goes really well with the song.

I love it when Jon starts to yell right before the chorus. It's like "oh shit, the Livin on a Prayer guy is pissed off!". It makes this a nice opener to These Days, it really sets the mood. And it displays a level of seriousness that they always had but didn't necessarily show off.

The drumming in the "gonna get down on my knees" part is just oh my God. It's awesome through the whole song, but in that one section where it's just Tico and Jon it's impossible to ignore it. It's hard and driving and angry and it makes the song, just absolutely makes it. And near the end, when there's about 40 seconds left, there's a part where Tico kind of goes nutso a little and it's almost like he's just smashing at the drums with no rhyme or reason, but the rhythm's still there.

I love, love, love the ending. The drums slow down and then die off completely and you're left with the guitar just kind of winding down. It's like "ANGRY ANGRY ANGRY angry angry ok I'm too tired of being angry, I'm gonna get sad now" and then comes the rest of the album. Excellent, excellent use of a song as an intro.

I made a Bon Jovi mix for a friend of mine, and when I make cds for her I write up a little paragraph about each song. This went on there as my evidence that Bon Jovi could be more serious and angrier and harder than they were in the 80s and still be Bon Jovi.

My Rating: 9/10

Bounce:
  • All About Loving You
  • Right Side of Wrong
  • Love Me Back to Life
  • Open All Night (remember, it's the Bounce version, the "I don't wanna fall in love with you/I try, try, try but I can't get around the truth" ballad, not the rockier one from the box set. Just to avoid confusion)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I absolutely love the guitar in Hey God!

I'll vote for Right Side Of Wrong.

Anonymous said...

"I love it when Jon starts to yell right before the chorus. It's like "oh shit, the Livin on a Prayer guy is pissed off!""
^That made me laugh. out. loud. props to you. *hearts*


I love like everything on Bounce. Hmm Right Side of Wrong because I'm curious that's my least favorite out of that list so I wanna know what you think.

Anonymous said...

Why are you always choosing all the songs I love, lol? Ok. Let's make wish... Love Me Back To Life, because it was the tune I was writing my essay at school today to. All of them are great.

P.S. Hey God and some Metallica's songs (was it Enter Sandman or another one, I cannot tell now) shares almost idhenthical intros, but according to Bonjovi.com answers, it is just a misunderstood.

Anonymous said...

I'll vote Right Side of Wrong. The drumming in Hey God is some of Tico's best, I do declare.

Paul said...

I lovw Hey God so much ... the last truly great single the band released

I vote Right Side cos it's the best outta those songs

The Walrus

Anonymous said...

JBJEveryday from the DC board

Love me back..curious to read your thoughts.

Awesome blog btw,I went through all the songs. Keep it up.