#107 - Dry County

Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Keep the Faith
Other Versions: None
Era: 90s "moody rock"

Lyrics
Video

First, to realize how cool this song really is, you have to read this little story. Postedo n Dry County, compiled and paraphrased from a bunch of interviews with Richie in the early 00s.

After New Jersey the band got together at the urging of a Japanese concert promoter. Jon and RIchie were each paid 1/2 million dollars US for that one show. The first X-mas show was a warm up for this high paying gig. They only played a handful of songs and parted ways for a good long stretch. Jons physical exhaustion and mental fatigue were very evident. He tried to recharge himself with Young Guns II and got the band together to play for the Academy Awards that year, but the band was unofficially separated at this point. The same promoter in Japan offered them the chance to play Japan again the following year as an exclusive engagement which was billed sometimes in Japan as the last Bon Jovi show. Jon and Richie got a cool 1 million each for this. But afterward Jon said to the band "we can't do this anymore" as he left. Richie released and toured behind his first solo record which he called "the greatest tour of my life". Meanwhile Jon tried a few things to "find himself, and deal with the end of the band". He toured with Southside Johnny as a backup musician and then took a long road trip across the country with a few close friends. In a little town in the middle of nowhere at a hotel where they stopped for the evening Jon headed down to the hotel restaurant for a little nightcap to help him sleep. The restaurant told him they didn't have a bar and when he asked for directions to the closest establishment, he was told that it was over an hour away due to local liquor laws. In the banquet room, still unable to sleep, Jon wrote at the grand piano the song that would save the band, a piano part, 2 verses and the chorus to Dry County. The next morning after breakfast Jon called Richie and left him a mesage on his machine. "Rich, it's me........I'm not ready to give up yet, I should be home in a few days, I got a song I think would be great, can you call the guys and see what they are doing, I think we should try" Richie said he kept the tape from the answering machine and he did hear Jon's song a few days later and it made him cry. "He never wrote a song like that before, it was real grown up music, no tits and ass, no fun and games but powerful", "when I laid down my track it was one take, Jon's voice just led me to the right solo". "Whatever happened that night in the desert changed our course, we were set on being apart" "shit that piano saved the greatest band in the world, (laughs)"

I love that story.

Whenever anyone tells me Bon Jovi are a fluff band, fun music but no real substance, I point them to this song. This is no fluff, no fun, this is entirely substance. Ten minutes of real, serious, thought-provoking, emotion-inducing musical genius.

"Dry County" sucked me in right from the beginning with that piano part. It's kind of low, meandering, it's a slow drift into this story and you want to know what gets that kind of lazy-important buildup.

Then Jon starts singing, and he does that quietly intense thing that no one does as well as he does. Even if you don't listen to the words, let them drift over you and just focus on that tone, Jon is saying something hella important. But you want to listen to the words, 'cause Lord they're good. "Across the border, they turn water into wine." That is one Goddamned awesome intro line. And it doesn't weaken at all as it goes on, like can be a problem with such strong openers. The "we're just born to die" line is a little cheesy, but I'd say that's the song's weakest point, and if the weakest point is "a little cheesy", that's good.

And then when everything kicks in, when it's guitar and drum and piano and Jon's intensity just fucking burns you, and "you can't help but prosper when the streets are paved with gold" it's just...wow. You fucking feel this guy's pain and you want to throw your hands up and holler the chorus right along with him.

The piano in the chorus...oh God, that piano. I will never cease to be impressed with how one instrument in the right hands can just take over your feelings and control you so much for two or three or TEN minutes. Take away the guitar, take away the drums, this song would be just as powerful with just that piano and Jon's voice.

Not to discount the guitar and drums. This is easily Richie's best guitar solo - it's huge and epic and powerful and it's the song all condensed into one instrument. And then the drums kick in and it's like sex - it's the two of them just going at it and they're playing off each other and building and building and building and it is incredible. That kind of interplay, that ability to suck you right in while at the same time having this very sublime personal experience, it's what I want from my music, and holy Hell do they deliver.

And then there it goes, right back down to that amazing piano work and Jon's quiet intensity and it's just what you need after that fucking orgasmic guitar work. Oh God, I just described something Richie did as orgasmic. I'm losing it, people. But that quietness is somehow even more powerful after what you just went through. The big blowout, the extremity of the pain in that guitar and the drumming, it drains you, it drains the man in the song. But he still hurts, still needs to get it out.

This song is a masterpiece, plain and simple. It is every one of them playing at their best, for a song that is writing at its best. And when you realize the impact it had on the band, it only makes it better.

My Rating: 10/10

I'm not sure if you guys are aware, but nothing is going to keep Jon from living his life. But something sure keeps him from saying "fuck".

• Everyday
• Bounce