Thank You For Loving Me not written by Jon?

Do you mean in contrast to the other Crush ballads or at all?

To me Thank You For Loving Me has always been a classic Bon Jovi ballad and the last one in the vein of the big ones I'll Be There For You, Bed Of Roses and Always.

If the songwriter credits you mentioned are true, I see your point. But other than that I see no reason to doubt Jon's and Richie's (at least) heavy influence in the writing of this song.

Songs like Two Story Town or Say It Isn't So a rather the ones that sound like nothing else up until Crush.

Two Story Town at least sounds like the other songs from that era that didn't make it (the vibes of Welcome to the Good Times, Too Much Of A Good Thing, etc) though I'll go to my grave saying Mark Hudson wrote the second verse.

I'd have to compare it melodically to other songs Jon and Richie have written. It's certainly....shmaltzy-er then the ballads they typically wrote up until that point.

Jon also rehashed a line from a 1996 movie for a ballad titel from Bounce, so it's hard to pinpoint it due to that.

True enough, I think the big difference here is he said he left the theatre to write the songs (I always assumed kiddingly) but it paints a rough picture of when it was written at least. I'd lean towards to Jon's involvement. Lots of D and G chords, Skies a different blue, these 5 words, believing lies...

I always considered TYFLM as a flat-falling copy of previous "big ballads". It has a lot of rehashed lyrics and style after-all.

It is true that it has an excess softness combined with optimism combined with mellowness that is not found like this in earlier ballads. All about loving you has a similar feeling although its chorus is kinda rockier and tryin to immitate I dont wanna miss a thing.

The vocal melody's climb towards the chorus is textbook songwriting, but other than that, it's not exactly remote from the stuff JBJ&RS had written before. Plus that intro is extremely Richie, especially post Undiscovered Soul Richie.

The guitar tab book from 2000 lists it as a Jon and Richie song too.

By the way, Genius lists TYFLM as written by JBJ & Dianne Warren. I wonder why there's so many conspiracy theories regarding this song in particular.

Out of curiosity, what makes the 2nd verse so Mark Hudson-like? Not familiar with is work/songwriting, but is there something typical about it? Like when Jon co-wrote Summer's Gone with the Beach Boys and a few lines were textbook-Jon?

In my mind I've always connected this song to Eric Bazillian. He wrote One Of Us in '95, then gave Jon a song for DA in 1996/97 and then Bon Jovi release a song that is brutally reminiscent of the track Eric had written for Joan

Just based on listening to the song's Mark's written with Aersomith and his own solo stuff

There's a girl that I sleep with
She's got ecstasy eyes
He promised her roses and American pie
I called her and my demons
And I kissed them both goodbye

Nothing about that screams Jon to me.