New unathorized Bon Jovi Biography book

Jon recently said that he wrote every part of Runaway minus the pre chorus

Where did he say that? Not that I doubt him in this case, just curious to know.

I can imagine very well though that Prayer mostly stemmed from others, at least the important ingredients. Richie came up with the chord progression (in fact he wrote it on a piano) because he was feeling guilty for having partied all night and not showing up in time for the writing session, Desmond surely contributed quite some essential parts, Hugh had confirmed that he had the idea for the legendary bass line and David (in one of the Keyboard tutorial videos from the late 80's) explained how he came up with some major keyboard lick for the song.

If i'm not mistaken it was at the Howard Stern show

Your point?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying he didn't write it. But that song is the very cornerstone of Jovi mythology. IF he didn't have that much to do with it, as Reesman said, what else would you expect him to say? "Yeah, I bought if off this guy so the story about me writing it and recording the demo in the wee hours of the morning, then taking it to the radio station to win the contest that put me on the road to stardom was all a fairy tale?"

As I said above...i think he said that at the Howard Stern show last year

It doesn't matter to me if he said it to the Pope on Easter Sunday morning.

If I understood your posts correctly, you said that what Reesman said couldn't be true, simply because Jon had said that he wrote everything but the pre-chorus.

As I said, what Jon said may be 100% true. I'm not debating the truth of his statement. My point was that, even if it wasn't true, after saying for 30+ years that he wrote the song (with Karak, according to the credits), and building the whole "rags to riches" framework of how the band got started around that one song, I can't see him changing his story now, even if all he contributed was "Ooooh, she's a little runaway..."

Or maybe I missed your point. Were you saying that Howard asked Jon about Reesman's comment and he clarified it with that resonse?

Did all of these stories come from different sources? And would you happen to remember any of them?

I ask, because I think it's interesting how the "making of" and "what inspired" stories change by degrees over the years.

I seem to remember something about Richie getting sick in the car on the way to Des' apartment and wanting to write a song about "prayer" because I immediately got this mental image of him saying, "God help me!" while he was tossing his cookies and that that's where he got the idea.

And if Hugh said that he came up with the bass riff, by that I assume he's referring to the part that Richie plays at the beginning on the talk box? The DUH-duh-duh-duh, Duh-duh-duh-duh... ? If that's what he's talking about then, iirc, that makes 3 band members who claim to have come up with it. I had heard or read that Richie came up with it, based on a Motown lick; and it's also the riff that David played in that tutorial, too. So that's very interesting.

I know that Richie has said he often writes at the piano but I had never heard that that's where he came up with the chord progression for Prayer.

If anyone's interested, the exact quote was:

HS: "You wrote that one yourself right?"

JBJ: "Actually I ended up co-writing because I needed help with the pre-chorus"

I love how it's always the pre-chorus. They claimed the same stuff about Prayer and Bad Medicine.

Thanks! Huh, so supposedly he only co-wrote the lyrics. I've heard that take before, given George Karak is a keyboard player, and Runaway, well, you know what the song's based around.

I'm pretty sure I've read a statement from Jon where he also referred to Karak coming up with the keyboard lick. It may have been an indirect quote in a German biography though.

And about Bad Medicine - I do have a TV interview from 1988 where Jon says something along the lines that "that's what you get for falling in love" actually had been a previous song title they had written with Desmond and he suggested to put it in there which lead to Jon's statement: "damnit I have to give hom credit on that song." (He was joking along about it).


It may have been either the chord progression or the key change. It's a direct quote in the book "BJ In Their Own Words". I have it in my second home, so I'll look up the exact words when I get back there in about two weeks time