#75 - Shot Through the Heart

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Bon Jovi
Other Versions: Recorded by a band called "Surgin'", I believe they never had a record deal (if they had a deal it wasn't a big one)
Era: Early 80s "synth rock"

Lyrics

This is one of my favorite Bon Jovi songs and it drives me nuts that people just toss the name around as the name of "You Give Love A Bad Name". I actually had someone in the Bon Jovi group on Last.fm correct me when I referred to "Shot Through the Heart" as "Shot Through the Heart" (I said it was one of my favorite songs, specified I didn't mean "Bad Name", and he came back with "I hate to correct you, but the name of the song is "You Give Love A Bad Name". Well I hate to correct you but you're a dumbass). Another one of my little Jovi-related pet peeves.

I love the way Jon sings this. He's so so into it, so intense. Even in the quieter parts he is very much pushing his voice to get the intention across. And the backing vocals, just the "ahh ahh ahh ahh" and "shot! shot!" are just yes. I love near the end where they're just shouting "shot!" over and over and over.

The guitar at the end is awesome. The very beginning, and the very end, best guitar-ing in the whole song. The keyboard during the first verse, the high notes, I love it. Love, love, love. And when the guitar goes "wheedly" and the drums kick in and here's the chorus it is so perfect. The drumming is so fast and hard and fun and perfect. I can't listen to this without dancing because of the drums.

I love what the keyboard adds to this. I'm not sure I can describe it. That keyboard is the essence of this song - it's cheesy, but seriously cheesy. It doesn't know it's being cheesy, it's just doing what it's doing. Take away everything else and the keyboard could give you the overall feel.

My favorite part of the whole song is Jon's dismissive"hah" after "now you've come back here to say you're sorry". I love it because when I played this song for a friend she started laughing at that and we had a nice "what the Hell, that was stupid" moment. I also like the "baby does as baby please/baby must have what she sees" part, for no discernible reason. Cheesy. Stupid. Fun. This is probably my favorite song on this album because of that unapologetic fun cheesiness. It's cheesy, it's ridiculous, but goddammit it's good.

My Rating: 10/10

For tomorrow, the box set:

• Real Life
• Every Beat of My Heart
• These Arms are Open All Night
• Gotta Have a Reason