Richie Sambora Reveals Who Inspired Famous Bon Jovi Song Characters

Richie Sambora Reveals Who Inspired Famous Bon Jovi Song Characters

Tommy & Gina from "Livin' On A Prayer"? "That was my parents," Sambora says. Also, "I'll Be There For You" and "Bad Medicine" are about the same girl who jilted him

http://richiesambora.visibli.com/share/H6TaWR

It's interesting how Jon and Richie see different characters in the songs. Jon has said about Prayer that it was about a couple he knew in high school. The guy got a baseball (or some sport) scholarship to college, but the girl who's real name was Antoinette got pregnant and he gave up the scholarship to marry her and raise the baby.

Jon has said IBTFY was about Dorothea.

This happens to all the bands and songwriters after a lot of years. Suddenly 20 years later they pull an "interesting" fact about the song and why how they wrote it out of God knows where to make it seem interesting again ....

Aloha !

I'm not buying how any of the ballads are about anyone in particular apart from Bed Of Roses being about Jon's hangover, cheating and then missing his wife, but the story about Prayer has been repeated several times, and if it would've been Richie's mom and dad I'm sure we'd have known by know. It's like Javier says, suddenly there'll be "interesting" facts about a song no one knew before.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Didn't Richie say at some point that he actually came up with the idea for Livin' On A Prayer while throwing up from the car driving to wherever Jon and Desmond were writing together, after a heavy night of drinking? Who knows, he might have thought of his mom and dad right then...

On a different note, having heard it all before, I still think Richie comes across as authentic. Maybe it's because I somewhat relate to him in a personal way...don't know, I do like the attention he gets. And to be honest - the worst part about the record is the production. The songs sound much better when played live and are definitely the best Jovi-related material since Undiscovered Soul came out (not counting David's solo record)