Richie and the songwriting

Oh yeah, I am not talking about guitar parts, I am pretty sure Richie wrote the majority of those. I consider songwriting more from a lyrical standpoint and I am sure that´s what Richie was alluding to in the interview.

I heard it like he was saying he wrote the lyrics to those songs, or at least had the core of lyrical content for those. I am not a believer, but as I said, Jon is equally as guilty of this kind of bullshit. I mean if you listen to the two of them, and Desmond, they all wrote the majority of Prayer?

I may as well throw my hat into the ring. I wrote Livin on a Prayer, well the majority of it at least.

I remember an interview with Jon hitting Max Martin in credit of Its my Life. He said was credited simply because Max was in the same room when they (Jon and Richie) wrote the song. Suggesting That did absolutely nothing or very little.

I think Max Martin was important in this song, and Jon's pride as a songwriter was questioned. So hit the man.

Now, Richie hits Jon for the same reason, I suppose. Jon has always been a cocky and selfish, many promos of albums, he saying my record, my single, me, me, me... Both behave the same way.

I've always loved that quote. A song writer like Max Martin who gets paid tons of money for his time, baloney he was just in the room.

Richie comes across as either incredibly full of himself or completely lacking self esteem. He massively inflates his contributions and greatness with things like writing HITS for Alice Cooper. I don't believe Hell is Living Without You was even released as a single, much less was it a HIT single. I listened to the Top 40 every week back then. Had it been charting, I would have noticed since Jon and Richie wrote it.

I'm not talking about guitar parts either... but the rhythm and harmonic basis of a song determines which vocal lines are gonna fit.

That being said, I doubt he ever wrote a Jovi lyric alone. He can't even do that on his solo albums, safe for 3 tracks on Stranger (none of which have great lyrics).

About the Alice Cooper scenario: THREE other guys (Jon, Desmond, Mr Cooper himself) were also credited for that track!

Which just proves a bit of a point. Alice had hardly anything to do with the songwriting on Trash, yet he's credited for every single song. That was basically an all star project to revive Alice. He might have added a lyric here and there, but those songs just scream Desmond Child/ Aerosmith/ Bon Jovi...

Anyhow - song credits here or there, doesn't really matter. The fact that Richie came up with the concept for Prayer while throwing up driving to Desmond's house in New York is a story that he described in a super old interview. The 3 of them took it from there. Then Wanted is an obvious Richie song, no question asked. I'll Be There for You - same stuff. No one questions that one.

The more interesting ones are These Days and Who Says .... both were more Jon songs in my book. I guess I might be wrong. I mean - it's one thing inflating interviews. It's a different thing lying to yourself. He could play Dry County for that matter - yet he doesn't.

they played together here:
http://www.lastfm.de/event/3347903+T...Festival+%2789

Desmond Child was heavily involved with Alice's writing on the entire album Trash. He was also the one who produced it. Obie was the Engineer and worked on the album in Jon's home studio. Jon and Richie are songwriters for Hell Is Living Without You. Jon also wrote the Ballad Of Alice Cooper which was an unreleased demo (Jon did a live version of it for a radio station). Jon is on backing vocals and Richie is on guitar for a few other songs too (Richie could be referring to guitar writing credits too).

Although Desmond is credited as the main songwriter, I have a feeling that some of those songs were recycled from New Jersey (and other artists albums that he worked with like Aerosmith). (The second single off the album is "Bed Of Nails" although an unrelated coincidence)

Like I stated earlier, it's difficult to read the lyrics and pick them apart as to what was Desmond's and / or Jon & Richie's but considering how stacked New Jersey was, I seriously doubt Bon Jovi would demo songs written by other artists. They must have had their pens involved with House Of Fire somehow during that period. I would love for someone to ask Jon or Richie that question. You'd probably get a more honest and direct answer from Richie. Edit: Jon could have demoed it for Alice as a favor to Desmond. Maybe he helped him work out an arangement or something like that. We all assume it was for NJ but it could have really been for Trash all along.

Anyway, I think this was basically a little Desmond project that Jon and Richie had a lot of small bits of feedback to contribute but Desmond basically got all the writing credits.

"Poison" was the only real hit off the album but I guess any single released that charts in the billboard top 100 could be considered a hit.

Can't someone lift the vocals from Alice's version of house of fire and add Jon's? Someone did it to an Elvis home recording of Dark Moon. It came out great

Since there is only an absolute crappy version with Jon's vocals I don't think it would come out any good. Haven't listened to the old NJ demo in about a lifetime but I think it's almost impossible to knock this one down to Jon's voice only. Getting Alice's vocals out of the other one might be doable if they're centre-mixed.