Homebound Train

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to I'll Be There For You)

Like the first two tracks on the album, this is a number for the headbangers among us. Homebound Train is a very simple rock song. With an aim to wake the sleeping headbanger and air guitarist in all of us, the band proceeds to rock as if there's no tomorrow in this deliriously brash song. It's a wicked and heavy number with lyrics that don't crave to be too artistic. The song is nicely loose and the organs, train effects and Jon's screaming add a great touch. It's a very good, fun and honest rocker, but as good a wicked rock song as Homebound Train is, sometimes it sounds a little too brainless and boring song. And when listening to New Jersey, this is the song that tends to get skipped the most. So it's a good rocker, but still probably the weakest song on the album.

Rating: ***


Wild Is The Wind

Written by: JBJ, RS, DC, Diane Warren
Status: Album track

The lyrics of Wild Is The Wind concentrate around the common themes of heartache and break-up. The lyrics tell about a man who felt that he couldn't be good enough for his woman, and therefore left her. He did his best and tried to be the man for her, but perhaps lost his self-confidence or something, and that drove him away from her. Wild Is The Wind is one of those songs that are good, but not really great. It's a little lukewarm song, colourless perhaps. There's a nice intro and nice passionate vocals from Jon and nice everything, but yet the song is in the end slightly grey - it's clearly not up there with the best material on this album. And besides the regular guest Desmond Child the song has another non-Jovi person giving their input to the lyrics: Diane Warren. And since I have this thing with authenticity - that I think that all bands (at least truly credible ones) should write all their songs 100% themselves - that bothers me a little. I'm never that happy about even Desmond Child's presence on any Jovi song because I would like the band to always strive for authenticity. Sure, Jon and Richie are no Lennon & McCartney but they can write songs, so they should strive to write all songs on the band's albums by themselves then. But the song is still good.

Rating: ***


Ride Cowboy Ride

Written by: Captain Kidd, King of Swing (JBJ & RS)
Status: Album track

Now, this is something. This song, with its length of less than a minute and a half, is Bon Jovi's shortest, and perhaps strangest song. That's because it's recorded in mono and presented on the album in strikingly unprofessional soundquality. Why it is done like that, is I think anybody's guess. This is a little acoustic number (written by Jon and Richie under the names of Captain Kidd and King of Swing) about cowboys. In all honesty, they could have recorded this properly and made it longer, but this song really is a lot of fun and being done like this has never bothered anybody. And why would it? The song is great.

Rating: ***


Stick To Your Guns

Written by: JBJ, RS, Holly Knight
Status: Album track

The cowboy image was clearly intriguing for the band in the 1980s. The idea of a rock band coming to town, stealing the money and the girls and leaving was the inspiration for Wanted Dead Or Alive, and although writing several songs about cowboys may seem a little naive to some people, at least songs about cowboys are not the most common thing you hear on the radio and they were perfectly appropriate for the band in the 1980s when they were young and were hardly doing overly serious music. Stick To Your Guns is the big cowboy song of this album. There's a nice contrast of heavier beginning and calm acoustic riffs that follow it, and altogether the song is a solid performance. Pulpy and succulent, while not one of the most impressive songs on the album, Stick To Your Guns is an alright cowboy song. A bit sad though, that there's again another writer contributing in the track, this time Holly Knight.

Rating: ***


I'll Be There For You

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Third single from the album released in April 1989, peaked at #1 in the US, at #18 in the UK

Bon Jovi never wrote lyrics like R.E.M., rocked as hard as Guns N' Roses or were as critically accepted as U2, but they sure wrote good songs for teenage girls. I'll Be There For You was the first real, big Bon Jovi power ballad. This song, that was also a no. 1 hit in the US, was the big bang of the Bon Jovi ballad and marked way for many more that would be written in the future. I'll Be There For You provided a well-working formula that the band didn't hesitate to use again later. Gripping, larger than life rock ballads that are sung with hair flowing in the wind and choruses screaming about eternal love for that special girl do well in the charts, as well as in the hearts of those average consumers of Bon Jovi. The band have written the same song many times, sometimes with good results (for example Always), sometimes with results that could have been left unreleased (for example I Want You). But this band have certainly excelled in the rock ballads field, the ballads are what everybody knows about Bon Jovi, and, I guess you could say that doing them was at the same time the band's biggest strength and weakness.
I'll Be There For You is lyrically exactly that so clichéd but oh, so wonderfully lovable love & heartache stuff: a man who has been dumped vows his eternal love for the woman who left him. I'll Be There For You is a textbook example of a great rock ballad. It isn't overly sugary but it's gripping and heavy enough, has effective choruses and good guitars. The song used to be a great live number as well, and on more than one occasion was used to close the concerts in the 1990s. The first one is usually always the best one, and this song is indeed one of the best Bon Jovi ballads. If not only for being the first in a series of songs written from the same well-tried recipe, but because the song is rocking, gripping and memorable, and shows at the same time what was so good and bad about Bon Jovi.

Rating: ****


99 In The Shade

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to Bad Medicine)

99 In The Shade is another excellent feel-good rock'n'roll song. It's a definite party song and a big summer song - the best and most fitting occasion to crank this one up is on a beach of endless sand, blue sea and hot sun without a worry on your mind. Great for headbanging and sing-along, 99 In The Shade rocks impressively and deliciously. It's fantastic, smooth rock'n'roll with big choruses and sweet guitars. Vivacious and frenzied, driving but not aggressive, light but not forgettable, this is one of my favourite songs on the album.

Rating: ****


Love For Sale

Written by: JBJ, RS
Status: Album track (also released as B-side to Born To Be My Baby)

The album ends with a bluesy jam that brings Bon Jovi a long way from Runaway. Love For Sale is a good acoustic number that shows the band's virtuosity as acoustic performers for the first time on an album. The song has rather funny lyrics by Jon and Richie, and a nice, relaxed mood to it. What comes to acoustic songs in general, there are very few of those on Bon Jovi albums, unfortunately. Although the band are fluent acoustic performers - especially Jon and Richie - and have done acoustic shows countless times over the years, there are only three acoustic songs on Bon Jovi albums, and they all originate back to New Jersey. It's a bit shame, since these kinds of things are fun and great things to have on an album. Love For Sale is a good song, a wonderful, frisky and fun jam and a fine closure to the album.

Rating: ****