Rate: Say It Isn't So
 

Aloha !

It's hard to imagine this would've been the first single for Crush. It did really poor, even when not comparing it to the succes of It's My Life and when Crush was released a lot of people agreed on this being one of the weaker songs on the album. I'd even go as far as saying this is the first single that wasn't universally liked by fans. It's not hard to understand how the band was told by management they needed a much better single to announce their comeback.

I think it's an odd one. It has a blend of everything and none of it works together. The lyrics are interesting but the first and third verse have nothing to do with the second verse. The overall production doesn't work either. It's the first Bon Jovi single without a guitar solo. There's no chorus to pump your first to. The song doesn't really have a flow either, you're constantly wonder when it'll take off making it sound really, really forced. Tico once said in an interview they had to do several demo's of the song as they could never work out the right beat and it's not hard to imagine why.

It never worked live either. The song wasn't released as a single in the U.S.A. because It's My Life was still riding the charts by the time the rest of the world was waiting for a follow up and yet because Bon Jovi fans wanted to see the video VH1 had it in heavy rotation in America and thus Jon wound up putting it in the set for every American show in 2001. Any time you're listening to a bootleg off that tour you wind up wondering what posessed Jon to open an encore with this one as it never, ever worked.

I wonder what would've happened if the song would've been better. It's clear It's My Life was a clever song, catering towards a pop audience while incorporating everything that made Bon Jovi the massive band they are today. It was very calculated and it paid off really well. That said, Say It Isn't So is the exact opposite, catering towards alternative rock listeners like Destination Anywhere did as well. What if the song would actually have been any good? A good Bon Jovi song produced like an alternative rock song with the catchy chorusses made familiar by them. Would it have saved them if It's My Life wasn't there?

5/10

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Agree with much of what you've said Seb. It's just a bit of a mess, that certainly shouldn't have been a single. Just Older would've been a far better single in my opinion.

Enormously boring song. I get that they're trying to do late 90's cynical pop rock (think Third Eye Blind) soundwise, but the song is simply missing something. Crush, Bounce and HAND all had the same single pattern (rockish anthem, lush pop track, ballad), and Say It Isn't So is by far the worst of the pop tracks. Much prefer Misunderstood and Who Says.

Rate: Say It Isn't So
 

Are y'all goin to be shocked to hear me say that it's in my top 3 from Crush. That said, I don't disagree at all with Seb's criticisms they are totally spot on yet I was always drawn to this dang saw. I still am!

9/10 because of replay value for me


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I think I came to hate this song as much as She Dont Know Me. I always skipped this track when I listened to Crush, but in the last few years it didn't seem so horrible to me, maybe because later they have done worse things.

5/10 I always thought it was an okay song with nice lyric, but I NEVER liked the "so's".

Fun, catchy pop song. Would never have worked like It's My Life, and it's not the best live song, but I love it on the album.

7/10

Rate: Say It Isn't So
 

Agree Seb.

My mate owned a CD shop at the time and got to listen to Crush a few days before it came out.
When he told me he had it I asked what’s it like as it’s my life was a decent start.
He said track 2 (pop song ) and 3 (awful ballad with rehashed lyrics ) are really poor.
He is a causal Jovi fan and he noticed the change saying a lot of the songs either have no solos or very short solos. But he did love Next 100 years...

So back to Say it isn’t so....really odd song. I like parts of it but dont like the chorus. You’re right in that the verses don’t link and make no sense. No guitar solo is odd (well was at the time) and it’s a real poor track to follow something like IML.

You know something , I feel the same about Something for the pain on These days. Same pattern - great opener, bland song 2nd and a ballad but TAALS is 100x better than TYFLM (which also has hardly any solo).

I’ve always said crush was the start of inconsistent albums from the band. Half of this was left over from DA and it shows.

Could never get on with Say it isn’t so, capt crash, she’s a mystery, all about lovin...was the first time they had released an album where I didn’t like more than 1.

So Say it isnt so gets a 4/10

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9/10 for me. I loved it when it was released and it was one of the songs that made me a fan so it will always hold a special place for me.

Even 20 years down the road, I still love it. As you said, it is a bit of a reflection of Jon's DA era songs and that is no bad thing, in my book.

I love Jon's DA era, even more than a lot of the band stuff, but this song never did it for me. It's not bad, but as others said, something's lacking.
In the context of its time, I'd probably give it a 4.
If a song like this was to appear on an album these days, I'm pretty sure most would rate it with a 7 or 8. That just highlights the change in the last two decades.