One Light Burning....

The most underrated song on Stranger IMO. Question is - why has this not been played live since 1992?! If it has I cannot find it anywhere.

But anyway an unbelievable song. If not the best song on the album?


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Spot on! Its a great song. Right there in the TOP5 of the album! I remember sending letter to Sambora's fan club back in 1992 and they sent me an application form w/ small announcement "Help us keep One Light Burning on fire. Call MTV and radio today". Still got it in my archive!

i really dont know what happened, was it Jon pushing the band back together or lack of promotion, but IMHO with this records Richie could have reached far wider (adult) audience, outside Bon Jovi fans if he had been able to tour & promote the album.

It is a strong one. I find 7/10 songs A+ and top notch. Only Church of Desire, Rosie and River Of Love aren't my favs....but considering the album as a whole, they are important part of the sequence.

I wouldn't say it's 'underrated' considering it was a single and one of the go to songs back in the day. Imo the entire album is underrated and is one of the best pieces of art to come out of the Bon Jovi camp...

Taking into consideration the music scene in 1991 a song like Rosie might have done better on American Radio... This is when 80s music was starting to fade and songs n sound had to be very specific... Blaze was a huge hit but Miracle did just okay... Although Richie had Bon Jovi fans there was just no niche for style of record... it's a dam shame...

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I agree... it wasn't lack of promotion and Jon had no fault to do with this one... Richie had 2 or 3 singles and videos. He was on a bunch of talk shows promoting it...Jon even showed up at one of his gigs...

If you are not a Bon Jovi fan, then the album is just okay... It really doesn't appeal to the radio masses... I'm surprised it didn't win any major Awards.

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Richie couldn't sing it anymore. When being asked to do stuff from Stranger (like Ballad of Youth) in Melbourne 1998 he admitted during the concert that he couldn't handle those demanding vocals of the first album anymore properly. And in 1998 his vocal range was still pretty great. I think that One Light Burning might've been the toughest song for him to sing and I actually believe that they had some backing track for the chorus even back in 1991.

Do you know when? Jon showed up at Shepherds Bush in 1998 on Richie's Undiscovered Soul tour but I've never heard about his attendance on the Stranger In This Town tour.

Jon was at the Count Basie show in '91

Is that really the reason? Just had another listen at it and I don't find it particularly challenging for Richie's voice. IMHO he could've even hit those notes in 2012, if he wanted to. Ok, maybe not 100% like on the record, but the song seems very doable to me...

It's a fantastic song. IMHO the best song in the album. The live version from San Diego it's amazing.

Stranger is a piece of art. There are very few albums that I listen from start to finish without skipping any songs ... These Days, The Wall, Dark Side ... and Stranger in This Town ...

While I can see why Ballad Of Youth would be hard to pull off live (even on the Stranger tour he did as a a duet with Crystal Taliefero, his backing singer), and stuff like Father Time too would be tough, but I agree with Jovifan that One Light doesn't seem a particularly challenging a song for Richie to take on. I wouldn't say it was anymore challenging than Stranger really, and he does that at almost every show...

Disagree.

I'm no musician, but One Light Burning seems substantially more vocally-demanding than Stranger. That chorus have some really high notes, which Stranger doesn't have except for the very last "midnight raid is coming down", which Richie haven't sung live like on the record in forever.

That being said I still don't buy it as a reason for not playing it live, because you can always downtune as much as you want until you can reach the notes, like Bon Jovi did with In These Arms to the key they've been playing that song since 2001. It just takes more effort and the final result may not sound as great, but it's totally doable and Richie has been willing to go that route with some other songs (Seven Years Gone, Rosie) recently.