I think that Bon Jovi is a talented writer and poet

Some of the greatest songs in the history of music have contained unclear or completely unresolved meanings, American Pie and Stairway to Heaven being just two examples from a list I’m sure could be named.

Why would you have to spell out what you mean lyrically anymore than a painter would make a show of revealing what symbolism they embedded in a piece or a poet would make self reference within a work to a particular meter they used and the reasoning behind it?

Surely, like any other art form it’s cheapened if all the pieces are put together for you… what would be left to think about?

Geez, that was a bit of pretentious wank.

i love how Jon writes, although doesn't seem that poetical to me (and that's just me!), i can really feel his lyrics and i love the style, just seem very realistic and i like that a lot

Jon's a great writer, but I prefer the songs he co-writes with Richie better.

Aloha !

The thing with Stairway To Heaven and American Pie is that they're not written to tell something. Dry County has been written by Jon to describe his feelings in a very poetic way that just didn't work. People see the lyrics as very good because they know the story behind it.

Difficult lyrics only work well when they can interpretated very different but still make sense. Dry County doesn't make sense when you don't know the story behind it. You can't make something else out of the lyrics than what's it really about.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Dude, I thought American Pie was about the "day the music died."

A wise man once said "The urge to write poetry should immediately be followed by the urge to beat oneself repeatedly over the hit with a baseball bat until the first urge is gone."

That is all.

Dude,

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/american-pie/

Just like she said. The day the music died:
" The entire song is a tribute to Buddy Holly and a commentary on how
rock and roll changed in the years since his death. McLean seems to
be lamenting the lack of "danceable" music in rock and roll and
(in part) attributing that lack to the absence of Buddy Holly et. al."

The day the music died was the day Buddy Holly, Richie Valenz etc got killed in that plane crash.

Ice

Lol.. genius... I'm going to add that to my collection of life lessons… is that from Douglas Adams by any chance?

rashbaum was pointing at the methaphors in the song. i was far from disagreeing with what raine had to say, rather posting a link which showed that the song was about far more than they had originally posted under the umbrella term 'the day the music died'.

I don't know where it's from originally. I saw it on another forum I visit. It made me laugh. I wrote it down.. or paraphrased. If anyone knows different I'd love to hear it.