The year 1991 - Jon's grey summer
 

I thought about this year (from a BJ perspective) a lot today. This has to be the year Jon lived through his "grey summer". It was the year Jon was trying to suicide by throwing himself out off a car driving on the highway (he was the passenger).
[source: http://bj-world.tripod.com/iviews/joniview16.html]
Jon talks about the issues he had back than on the DVD which comes in the box set.
On the other hand this period gave us some of the most deep and introspective songs that the band/Jon ever wrote.

I know this issue has been discussed several times, but all the lists that were put togeter in this forum left me not quite satisfied in the end, so I tried to gather as much info as I could from posts in this forum, searching the net for interviews and further information to get a list that might not be seen as definitive but at least comes close.

There is one quite reliable indicator for finding these songs: They were written solely by Jon. The band didn't reunite until October, when they made the decision to carry on on the island of St. Thomas (supported by psychologist Lou Cox), so during 1991 Richie probably wasn't involved in the songwriting as he was touring at the end of the year.

So the first thing I did was to list all songs from the KTF sessions which only have JBJ credited. Some of them were confirmed by Jon on several occasions, others indicate being a grey summer song by their content:

Confirmed/with proof:

Dry County → Several speeches
Love Ain't Nothin' but a Four Letter Word→ written after the small tour with SSJ in september 1991 as confirmed on the Boxset DVD
Radio → Boxset DVD, Amsterdam 2005 speech
Miss Fourth of July → Boxset DVD, speech at Borgata 2004
Bed of Roses -> performed at the christmas show 1991, I think it was also mentioned in storytellers
The Sole Truth -> performed on the christmas show 1991

Fitting by the lyrical content, but without proof:

Fields of Fire
Fear
I Want You
Drive

Others:

The Fire Inside -> there's a lot of Young Guns influence in there so this may also date back to 1991
Woman in Love -> doesn't quite fit the other ones lyrically. Might have been written in Vancouver during the album sessions in 1992, so noe grey summer song to me.

So what do you think? I'd like to ask anyone who has further proof for one song being/not being "grey summer" to post it here. Thanks :)

Jon mentions the "grey period" during the introduction of Radio, so this kind of confirms it:

I will have to listen to the songs of that era more carefully the next days to get behind their origin.
But I think this is an awesome topic, kind of a refreshment between all the "they need to change their producer" and "how much they still got to say..." topics! But maybe it's just me who has that feeling :)

Totally, I'd prefer to talk about the songs. I love the Grey Summer Era. They're so bleak.

I never knew that Jon was contemplating suicide... :o

Good songs came from here. I still think it's a crime that Radio never made it to Keep the Faith, but hey, at least we got it on the box.

"Drive" is another one I'd bet my life on being from that era.

He said that his wife had stopped him from jumping out of a driving car.

Oh right. I totally forgot about this :) Another one for the lyrically-fitting category!

And it was also after his suicide attempt that Dorothea proposed doing a motocycle-tour through the country, which was the inspiration for Dry County, right?

Cool, and Jon mixes up everything again, thinking Radio was written for New Jersey :D

Bahaha. You'd think "Wife" would have been a tip off in the lyrics.