Borderline with Richie Sambora on vocals

This version is pretty interesting. Although I prefer the way Jon sang it, it raises the question who wrote it. Is this a clue Richie came up with the song?

Borderline was written by Jon and David. So it is odd that Richie is singing it. I guess he was just heping record the demos, maybe Jon was sick or busy that day so Richie just laid the vocal down to save time. Or maybe he had some melody or emphasis ideas that he wanted to present to Jon (the way that he sings some lines in the verses are different to the way Jon sings them).

It's interesting how the instrumentation on both versions are very similar but the vocals give the song a completely different feel. Jon's version is of course more polished and makes it sound more like a Bon Jovi song, but the bluesyness in Richie voice was very apparent even then. Really interesting to hear this.

I dont own the original single so I checked discogs and you are right. So Jon and David did still write together, but Davids stuff just wasnt used anymore for the album. Do you know the writing credits for the other Slippery outtakes as well? Deep Cuts The Night always sounded to me like something David would come up with.

I think the latter only exists from the muddy old bootleg tapes and wasn't registered anywhere. As for David's involvement, there was an interview leading up to SWW where Jon said he basically told David to step and be more involved - or be out of the band. I believe the scan of this was posted here many years back. So I don't think he had too many song contributions on the leftover material.

Huh, I thought this would be AI, but the phrasing is super different from Jon's. Unless a second take exists, this might be real. Pretty cool

It's real. It was aired on a Sirius XM special hosted by Jon and Obie.

Yeah, I just read up on the other thread. Some cool stuff among these.

Sounds like a SIIT outtake. At least the vocals have that vibe.

My first thought was "that's not him pre-SWW."
Richie's vocals must have been from a later take, his time also changed a bit around the NJ era (the soundcheck recordings of Only Lonely show that). I guess it was a rerecorded take somewhere in the early 90s, maybe really during the SITT era.

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I agree that it does sound like a slightly more mature Richie than 86 but my brain can't make any sense of why they would have re-recorded this as a Richie vocal. Especially when he wasn't even a co-writer on it.

I wish Obie and Jon had given us some background on this...