Songs that take you back to a specific time and place

And finally the thread which is the real reason why I love this band. Why I'm still here. Why I DO enjoy every concert I go to no matter if the vocals were off, or Richie wasn't there, and even if Jon was just phoning it in from some distant place. There's not just a few memories. There's whole chapters of them, each song linked to a time and place when I was growing up and learning and needing to believe in something.

Blaze Of Glory, 1991 - the first song I ever took notice of. My parents had just had a break up and I was eleven or twelve and living in my grandmother's house, watching the Young Guns II movie. And at the end the strings with the wind blowing and then the guitar kicking in and this guy singing "when you're brought into this world, they say you're born with sin, at least they gave me somethin' I didn't have to steal or have to win." Those lyrics hit home like an arrow, and the way the song screams defiance, no matter what life throws at you, that was me then, it still is now. But I'll always remember where I first heard it. And what it meant to me.

Keep The Faith, 1992 - My whole teens were quite a dark period in my life, and sometimes I think one of the things that got me through it was this song and the album it's named after. I was lying in my bed with this in repeat in the dead if night, over and over again in my stereo, the CD just playing on and on. It became a constant soundtrack for me for those years. "You know your going to live through the rain, lord, you gotta' keep the Faith."

Hey God, 1996 - I'd taken the day off work to buy the album and listen to it, as had my friend. And when the album kicked in with me, he looked at me and I looked at him, and it was just a wow moment. It's not my favourite song in the album, but that electrifying moment when Hey God kicked in...I'll always think of that brief second of realising this was something special.

Blood On Blood, also 1996 - that same friend, a few months later, went to join the army at the age of Sixteen. He'd wanted to do this all his life. It was the only thing he ever wanted to do. So as I said see you later to him, he said "I'll write, and everytime I do I'll start the letter....well I can still remember, when I was just a kid." His army career didn't work out in the end, but nearly twenty years on we're still friends, as I am with a very select group of people that have been like brothers since the late 80's.

Thank You For Loving Me, 2000-2003 - Around the time Crush was released I was on the jovitalk pen pals thing, and on Backstage. I got chatting online to a girl called Kelli. We became great, great friends, and then we entered a long distance relationship. This was our song. We were together for a few years, til around the time Bounce was released actually but long distance relationships are hard when you're 3'000 miles away. But this song will always be for her in my heart. "Lock the door, leave the world outside..."

I'll Be There For You, 2003 - Around the same time I was friends with a girl on Backstage called Jovibabe. We got on really well and it felt like we'd known each other forever, though it had just been a few months. Along with a group on backstage chat that just became a big network of people who really cared for each other. But on Jovibabe's birthday, my phone had been cut off along with my internet. Jovibabe was a bit upset I'd missed saying happy birthday to her and that line in the song "I didn't mean to miss your birthday baby, I wish I'd seen you blow those candles out" made it become our theme song. It still is and we've been married seven years this year.

Make A Memory, 2007 - It was supposed to be Jude and I's wedding song. We got married in Sri-Lanka and after a Buddhist ceremony in a garden next to the beach and a scary elephant ride and all sorts of weird ritual stuff, we were ready to chill out and drink and party. but the DJ at the hotel skipped the song on the CD and so we never got to hear it. After a few weeks honeymooning in the Maldives we'd kinda forgotten about it and when we got home put on the wedding DVD we'd been given - "hello again, it's you and me, kinda' always like it used to be" - starts playing out of the speakers accompanying the video of the Sri-lankan hotel and the ceremony. Whenever I hear it, I'm back there in an instant.

I guess what I'm saying is this band - and it's a cliche, really have been the background noise of my life for well over twenty years. There's few other bands that can do that over such a long, long stretch of time.

Every song has a lyric or a note that's connected to a memory that's connected to the very fabric of who I was, who I am now, who I might be in another twenty years.

And when it's over, Blaze will still be the song playing in the crematorium at the end.

"
Each night I go to bed
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
No I ain't looking for forgiveness
But before I'm six foot deep
Lord,I got to ask a favor
And I'll hope you'll understand
'Cause I've lived life to the fullest
Let the boy die like a man
Staring down the bullet
Let me make my final stand

Shot down in a blaze of glory
Take me now but know the truth
I'm going out in a blaze of glory
Lord I never drew first
But I drew first blood
and I'm no one's son
Call me young gun
I'm a young gun"

Theres not many bands that can have a song 25 years old that can take me back to a moment in my life in an instant.
As soon as the song starts - i can see, smell, feel, taste what I was doing when my memory clicks in.

Something To Believe In. For reasons so many in numbers. Let's just say that it fits my entire life.

Have a Nice Day was released at a difficult time during my teens that I don't particularly want to elaborate on here, but hearing it on Video Hits (a now defunct Australian show) one morning made me determined to take my life back.

It's Hard Letting You Go came on shuffle while I was trying to get over the person I still love more than anything in the world so that song transports me too.

It's not necessarily about the "best" songs, simply the right ones at the right time.

is my most sentimental BJ song because having got FIVE girls, my father (a musician who had to quit and get a "real" job) could have sang it -- especially the parts about not brushing our hair and not wearing shoes in December.

He grew up so poor, he couldn't continue school after sixth grade and HAD to go barefoot. So he hated it when we went barefoot or bought home low grades (though he bought me a guitar when the Beatles awakened my interest in music). And he thought we'd turned into bomb-throwing militants when we stopped straightening our hair in favor of wearing it naturally.

But while we may have broken his heart a few times, his girls are now leaving their marks: four out of five of us, and all five of his grandchildren (two of them male), are college graduates -- though some of us still don't wear shoes in December!

Bon Jovi was the soundtrack to my childhood

I was around 8 years when I first borrowed SWW frommy older brother and was hooked straight away.

I remember listening to New Jersey on vinyl and listening to the crackles as LYHOM kicked in. I used to get up and jump around the room to it.

I was at school when KTF dropped and remember talking about how epic the bass line was. I used to play the cassette on my Walkman while doing my paper round. It kept me in a good mood whatever the weather was.

I was sat playing computer games in my bedroom when I first heard Always on the radio. I was so embarrassed as I did not recognise it as BJ and only found out at the end when the DJ said who it was. I was gutted as I thought I was the worlds biggest fan and I didn't even recognise or like the song. I never told anyone about that.

These Days was released on a bank holiday Monday in the UK and I rushed out to buy it before jumping on a coach to watch Barnsley FC in the play offs at Wembley. Barnsley lost that day and I was gutted. I remember listening to the CD on my discman on the 5 hour coach journey home the angst and the darkness in that album really helped to console me.

haha, this is so cool!

cancer memory was touching


me, idk.
it's my life and having to stay at home alone during days for ages with a slit wrist. not an unhappy memory/time really, nor a happy one, just different. and didn't relate to lyrics 'cause didn't speak any english or something and it was a fast song, wow what a slow coach i was jk

dry county, sunny autumn days and beer, developing strong feels and tucking in a coat or what even this sentence, on walks.

diamond ring, having afore mentioned strong feels. and horoscope discussions

wild is the wind, said feels busted.

sambora's songs, by that i mean stranger album, a few of them, difficult times but his lyrics seemed light. and ladida

It’s My Life – Takes me back to when I was 6 years old and my father gave my mother the Crush album for her birthday. I was really little, so I jumped from the sofa to the floor listening and singing that song. Crush was THE cassette we listened when we were on the car, so the whole album takes me back all the times we traveled from Villa Regina to General Roca, two cities, the first one where my grandfather’s live and the other where we used to live.

The This Left Feels Right version takes me back to my grandfather’s house, I was hearing the radio and that song played. I was like “why is this song slow?” so I asked my mom, who told me it was an acoustic version.

Hey God and Undivided – I didn’t knew a lot of Bon Jovi back them but I was browsing the Internet back in 2003, and got into this Intranet the ISP had made with lots of albums, These Days was one of them, Bounce was the other one, I downloaded it (sorry Jon) and the moment I heard Hey God my mind was blown up, same with Undivided. That day I fell in love with the These Days album which remains my favourite album still, I heard Hey God/Something For The Pain/TAALS and These Days over and over and over again.

Livin’ On A Prayer takes me back to 2005, when finally I got a computer and Internet in my house. The first thing I did was download the videoclips of Bon Jovi and when I listened and saw the one of Prayer I called my dad and my mom to see it, they were like “We saw this a hundred times on MTV” but still stayed until it ended.

Story of My Life takes me back to the graduation trip, I was listening the album on my discman while we traveled and everyone said this song was great.

Have A Nice Day takes me back to the summer of 2005 – 2006, the song was playing all the day on the radio, my friends and I used to go to this club that had pool, tennis and paddle courts with our families and spend all the day there. I remember I had bought the New Jersey record that summer in Musimundo, a store here that used to sell albums, and now sells everything but albums.

(You Want To) Make A Memory takes me back to May, 2007. My mother used to saw American Idol and I knew Bon Jovi was going to play so I watched it with her. I love this performance and she and I watching the show on her bedroom is one of the latest memories I have of her as she passed a few months later.

The whole Lost Highway album takes me back to, I don't know what year, I think 2009 or 2010, I never got into that album but Lost Highway, Memory and Stranger, and he was playing that album... Summertime was playing and I heard it all as he was driving me to school I really liked it. Few days later he had gifted me the Lost Highway album and I didn't heard it, "you don't have this one", he said, when I got from school I played it all and now is one of my favorite albums.

That’s What The Water Made me takes me back to the Argentina 2013 gig and kinda makes me happy. I don’t know how, don’t know what, don’t know why. Well, probably it’s because it was the opening song and had a great time.

Also, the whole These Days album takes me back to several times in my life.

It is cheeese, but I can say BJ music has been my soundtrack These guys has been with me, when I felt good and bad and always wil be. Different memories come around.
Thank You For Lovin Me- with this song all fan stuff began, great times.
Everyday- Highschool memories. How I asked and asked BJ music from local radio stations How went so many music shops to find Bounce CD on the first day when it come out and how happy I was
All About Lovin You- how I sang on MTV show by phone, just to win a lot of Jovi stuff. I am not good singer and I don´t like to sing. But I did it It was scary and I didn t win.
KTF and TD albums- my first summer work salary and I was so happy that I can buy alumbs with my own money.
These Days- how I sceamed at Romania show , when I heard first notes Pure joy
HAND album help me a lot. Lyrics worked for me, when the album come out

BJ lyrics / music is special!