I once read that the chorus of Livin' On A Prayer should be ripped off from the old Rouge song "Our Love Is Insane". On the other hand that was Desmond Child's old band, so I don't know if you can call that a rip-off then.

I don't hear the similarities one bit. Do you?

Well, I guess the ooohs are the only similarity between the two chorusses.

Back to the so-called demo version of Payer - it bothers me somehow. Some people on Youtube take this as the proof that Bon Jovi don't write any of their songs themselves. Well, it's definitely Desmond singing on that demo and I think he should be capable of recording this piano part on his own, as he writes on the piano as could be seen on several occasions.
But what makes me doubt the story the most is that the lyrics are completely the same as the final version of Prayer. Wouldn't Jon have wanted to switch some words, add something from his own? Especially as this seems to be one of the first versions, basically completely un-arranged for a rock band. And from this point through the whole process of the songwriting sessions, preproduction and production the lyrics remain completely untouched? I somehow don't buy that.

But if it's not the original Prayer demo, what else is it?

Another possibility could be that it was demoed for Desmonds Solo album Discipline ... maybe he wanted to record this stripped back version of the song, similar to the version Jon and Richie played at the MTV awards 89, as that was really popular at the time.

We probably won't find the answer as long as we don't know the source of the demo. So does anyone have a hint where this came from?

As I listened to that demo for the very first time, the first thing that I thought of was, that this was a demo version of the finished article for which he was testing for a future record. There is going to be no proof in either direction but the lyrics are complete and the same as the final Jovi version. This Desmond version first or BJ ......I tend to air on the side that this is after the final demo of BJ LOAP. Desmond Childs may well have provided the majority of the song but JBJ are the artistic masters of the final version.

Fair enough, I can hear it now. Similar, not quite a rip-off though.

actually, it's a toss up between Garden Of Eden and My World from the second Illusion album :D

Nothing to see here. All bands have influences and some songs sound very similar to others. There's only so many strings on a guitar and so many keys on a piano.

'Diamond Ring' borrows a lot from 'Twist & Shout', too.

oasis are masters of stealing songs.

everyone does it. cuckoo land awaits for those who think songwriting is about originality!

If some people want to solve mysteries, they'll always find their ways. I don't want to guess how much of LOAP was written by Desmond. But for me this version is clearly a later recording by Desmond. When you take his solo record, he used tracks previously released by Cher and other artists and gave them his own version since he had co/written them. Moreover I think LOAP wasn't written as this slow ballad-like song. And this sounds almost exactly same as the Jovi's acoustic version. And when you take the first acoustic rendition of Prayer (some radio show, Feb 1989) it was different and changed throughout the 1989 up to the MTV Awards version which stick until now.

i can mind hearing that Des Child wrote the pre-chorus. that was his input.

Jon thought the song sucked and richie had come up with the chord progression on the piano.

Rich man living in a poor man's house - Learning to fly by Tom Petty

The same song...

Yeah i agree and i don't know what quiz do they play....:D
Its just a stupid tread, topic....

Aloha !

It's all very well what you're posting but none of the songs you posted are from the same artist. If one artist has 1 or 2 songs that sound the same like another, you could call it a co-incidence. If 1 artist has a whole list of songs which sound a lot more similar than just a riff here and there, it's stealing. I was well aware of several songs you listed and I'm not denying there are similarities, but because people said how every artist does it, to come up with an example that has at least 10-20 songs that are copied from others.

That's a bullshit excuse and doesn't really make sense. It's got nothing to do with "there's only so many strings out there". It doesn't make sense at all, if possibilities were that limited all artists would do sound the same. In several examples Jon didn't just steal the chord progression, no he stole it to the exact timing and exact beat of the original. Besides, if what you're saying were true, why is it that the stuff Jon, according to you does not steal from, happens to be the same stuff he listens to or was either popular at the time it was written?

There's loads of people that never hear the similarities to other songs until you start singing the direct melody over it. Fans said people were crazy for comparing Bells Of Freedom to This Ain't A Love Song, because THEY'RE SO DIFFERENT! OMG!" Put all the closes of It's My Life on 1 CD and many will think they heard 15 different songs.

However, if because you don't hear it therefore won't accept that they are to someone else, or just refuse to accept how Bon Jovi are far from as creative as they'd like to pretend they are you're missing out a whole lot in music in general. Now I know it helps if you play guitar, or any other instrument for that matter, because you at some times develop a musical ear for this, but saying it's all a co-incidence is saying the same for everything the Chinese copy from the western world.

http://repairpaintcar.com/wp-content...cSRX_thumb.jpg

The left one is Bon Jovi, the right one is Tom Petty. "There's only so much you can do with 4 wheels", right?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I don't know if you are just stupid or you are actually trolling around. Useless topic.

Led Zeppelin are well-known for stealing many of the songs they call their own. They were also sued for doing this many times so at least Bon Jovi is being less blatant than them with stealing.

Because I'm lazy I just copied this list from some website.

"Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" - A folk song by Anne Bredon, this was originally credited as "traditional, arranged by Jimmy Page," then "words and music by Jimmy Page," and then, following legal action, "Bredon/Page/Plant."
"Black Mountain Side" - uncredited version of a traditional folk tune previously recorded by Bert Jansch.
"Bring It On Home" - the first section is an uncredited cover of the Willie Dixon tune (as performed by the imposter Sonny Boy Williamson).
"Communication Breakdown" - apparently derived from Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown."
"Custard Pie" - uncredited cover of Bukka White's "Shake 'Em On Down," with lyrics from Sleepy John Estes's "Drop Down Daddy."
"Dazed And Confused" - uncredited cover of the Jake Holmes song (see The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes).
"Hats Off To (Roy) Harper" - uncredited version of Bukka White's "Shake 'Em On Down."
"How Many More Times" - Part one is an uncredited cover of the Howlin' Wolf song (available on numerous compilations). Part two is an uncredited cover of Albert King's "The Hunter."
"In My Time Of Dying" - uncredited cover of the traditional song (as heard on Bob Dylan's debut).
"The Lemon Song" - uncredited cover of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" - Wolf's publisher sued Zeppelin in the early 70s and settled out of court.
"Moby Dick" - written and first recorded by Sleepy John Estes under the title "The Girl I Love," and later covered by Bobby Parker.
"Nobody's Fault But Mine" - uncredited cover of the Blind Willie Johnson blues.
"Since I've Been Lovin' You" - lyrics are the same as Moby Grape's "Never," though the music isn't similar.
"Stairway To Heaven" - the main guitar line is apparently from "Taurus" by Spirit.
"White Summer" - uncredited cover of Davey Graham's "She Moved Through The Fair."
"Whole Lotta Love" - lyrics are from the Willie Dixon blues "You Need Love."

source: http://www.warr.org/zep.html

Yeah. That should be close to about 20 songs and that's only the blatant ones.

Aloha !

Your input in this discussion is just as appreciated as the input of Greece in the European Union, pretty much for the exact reasons as well.

Thank you, this is all what I was asking for. After all the "Everyone does it" rubbish this is the first clear example of a band ripping off other music. I'm going to have a listen to these later on and see how they match eachother. :)

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Seb, you've got WAY too much time on your hands.

Aloha !

I won't deny that for a minute.

That said, what makes you think so? It's not as if I'm looking online for similarities all the time, all of the examples I listed stem from a first listen to any of the songs. I have a feeling you're not even hearing half of them and are therefore dismissing anything that's being said that indicates that not all Bon Jovi songs are so Bon Jovi after all. I started with 12, then added 8 more examples just from the people that post here. I don't understand why, if you're a Bon Jovi fan, or just a music fan in general, you wouldn't be more interested in what else is out there that have helped building up Bon Jovi's legacy. Is it reluctancy? Is it ignorance? I don't get it.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I just don't care. If I like the music, that's all that matters to me.

The first verse in particular is practically identical.

Interesting observation. I just recently read an old interview where Jon admits to using the song as an inspiration for Damned, which is easy to hear.

How about one that's so obvious I don't even need to say what the Jovi song (well, intro) is? The original (as far as I can tell) is not well known, as it was stuck at the end of the album as a hidden song:

One Wild Night.

All the world copy. Influences are small, I see the problem so evident in most songs, are only a few seconds or a riff here and there.

New Slash album also copy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY9UQ6sWIvU#t=00m52s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MTH0CzU4-8#t=00m56s

I think if you put attention to any band / artist of success for over 20 years we can find 20 similarities to other songs.

Now this thread is getting ridiculous ....... (Or should I have started it with EVEN MORE)

'Hey God' is quite similar to Carly Rae-Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe'. Both amazing songs, for one.

Aloha !

Did you actually recognize the tune he posted?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I get Sebastian's point, I know everybody copy somebody else... The thing here is that Jon says "I'm the man, I'm the mastermind behind these hits, me, no one else and I'm proud of it" and we all know he is... in most of the songs... But NOT in all of them, he obviously has lied about that image he's tried to make us believe in.

Seb's right. Now that that's been said... I don't give a damn about it... I LOVE 99% of the BJ songs, don't care who wrote it, don't care if Jon's a good or bad person, a liar or a hero... The one thing I do care about is listening to BJ's music.

Of corse I did and I think it's hysterical! That beginning elevator sound has nothing to do with the song itself . It's basic waiting elevator music. You give the band way too much credit. I'm sure the song was written way before that sound was included. It was probably the producer who added it during the edit.

Like I said prior. This entire thread is a joke. It's been done twenty times already. If it's fun for people to find similarities, knock yourself out!

On a side note, there is one thing I'd really want to know... Did Jon write the entire blaze album himself? I know he used the script as a guide. I think those songs are brilliant

I don't think Jon ever said he's the mastermind behind anything! He credits Richie all the time.

Well... he has used terms like CEO and quarterback, which I think kind of points towards the same direction. However, for every interview I have seen him be cocky, I have seen one where he is humble... often in the same interview. He does both well and neither bother me at all.

My biggest complaint that pertains to this subject is the whole, "we don't cater to fads" nonsense. In the 80s they did pop/metal... the biggest fad in rock music at the time. In the 90s, Always, SFTP, TAALS, HBE sounded an awful lot like something that might make it on an Aerosmith album, which a year or two prior had quite a bit of success... however I am thankful that, with the exception of Prostitute, they didn't try grunge. Bounce had the Distance and LMBTL which sounded ridiculously similar to Creed... also on their way out, but still big at the time. Then, after Kid Rock proved that you could get a whole lot of airplay by going country, they went country. So that statement makes me cringe every time I hear them use it.

Noel Gallagher and Oasis have stolen a bunch of songs too. I love Noel but he’s been successfully sued twice that I know of and has a bunch of other songs that aren’t completely his.

Whatever – How Sweet to be an Idiot by Neil Innes
Cigarettes and Alcohol – T-Rex Get it on
Don’t Look Back in Anger – opening piano bit is Imagine by John Lennon and he also lifted some of the lyrics from Lennon.
Shakermaker – Stolen from a Coke ad
Fade in out – the start is very similar to Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi (commented on a lot upon release as I recall)
Hindu Times – Same Size Feet by Stereophonics

I’m sure someone more musically knowledgeable than me could come up with more Noel examples.

Robbie Williams has had to acknowledge twice that he’s stolen songs (Angels and Jesus in a Camper Van) and even someone like U2 are guilty of it (didn’t they steal the beginning of Angel of Harlem from Bob Dylan).

Every major artist does it. A lot have been sued. Jon or Bon Jovi have never been successfully sued.

I don’t doubt that Jon is very selective when it comes to writing credits and don’t doubt that he has used ghost writers for a lot of songs because there is that much smoke that there has to be fire. Naively, I believed in the 90s (maybe coz of my age) that Jon had the “unless I write it, it doesn’t go on the record” policy as an artistic statement whereas the last decade has shown that undoubtedly it’s a business decision. He’s still a supremely talented guy though and to say otherwise, or question that, is a little bit pathetic.

I'm talking strictly song writing......

Jon is cocky as a heck when it comes to everything else but he's extremely successful and a Rock Star.

I don't agree with the Aerosmith reference above. I think those songs sound like Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi and Aerosmith used a lot of the same people back in the late 80's early 90's.... AKA Desmond... so their sound could be somewhat similar.

Let me sum this up:

Bon Jovi are a "Commercial Band". One of their biggest accolade’s is the fact that they somewhat change with the times however balance it with their Bon Jovi sound. I believe that's the key to their longevity. Most 80's bands couldn't do that and that's why they are all becoming extinct.

Bon Jovi do NOT produce their albums. I've heard Jon say in interviews that they are more than capable but don't do it.

If someone says a song sounds like Creed for example, it's not that the song sounds like Creed, it sounds like what was happening in 2002! And I wouldn't blame (or credit) Jon for that. It's the Producer Jon hired!

In '05 /' 06 Jon probably scanned all the different "IN" sounds and selected the best one that fits their style. He saw the future. He's not going to make an "Emo" or "Rap" album.... He saw country music crossing over and said this is the direction I want to go in because this best fits our style and it can open doors to a bigger audience. He saw a band like "Big and Rich" make it in county without sounding like county. (LH is not a county album in any way. There is no twang in Jon's voice and take out the violin & pedal steel, and you have a straight-up rock album. Memory is not a country song and neither are a handful of others). Anyway, Jon hired a producer and said I want to sound like Bon Jovi but give me the bare minimum to get into that door to that audience. Who Says was the experimental song and LH was the album. IMO, Jon is brilliant for that. As far as what the songs sound like are completely up to the producer. Jon probably doesn’t have the first clue about a county sound. So if someone says that Lost Highway the song sounds like a Big and Rich song, that’s not Jon stealing the sound, it’s the producer going after the trend.

That's what Bon Jovi does. They are not out stealing from artists. They are going after the current sounds. They hire professionals to modernizing the Bon Jovi sound.

Now in some situations, Jon might try to imitate one of his influences. I see no harm in that. He admitted that he stole NSG from Hearts Of Stone. So what! They are totally different songs.

Music is an evolution. No one creates anything in music. Elvis didn't create RnR. RnR formed on its own through evolution. Elvis just added to it and made it popular.

Jon is not a Deaf & Dumb genius. He can only create music based on what he knows and what he heard in the past. It's all artists. Jon added to that evolution for the past 30 years. Another Reason To Believe doesn't sound like a Stones song from 1965, it sounds like an experimented song from 2002 that never made an album. He took something from one of his influences and tried to evolve it.

That’s The History Of Music!

So all you people letting Seb get into your head, smack your ear on one side to get him out of there.

You're being very naive with the way Jon and Richie produce albums. The producer doesn't have as much hold on it as you're saying, not for a band of that size.

Aloha !

I wouldn't call it naive, it's just very wrong. It shows how little he actually knows and how much he assumes is being true based upon a guy feeling in regards to the band. If that's the way you're experiencing things you'll only get so far but you're missing out on a lot for not hearing certain similarities or just the way things are written. And that's fine, just don't dismiss the facts that are out there for not being true simply because you fail to understand them.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

See, I think you guys put WAY too much thought into everything. Everything is Jon this and Jon that. Sure Jon is the final say for the most part but the record co has some control over that as well.

I think Jon, Richie, and who ever write songs, give them to the producer, they have a back and forth conversation on sound (I like what so and so did here, the producer says, listen to what this other band is doing now), and then Jon lets the producer run the show from there. If there is something Jon doesn't like, I'm sure he'll interject but I think for the most part, Jon will let the paid professional dictate the sound. The producer Jon hired just had 7 top ten hits for 5 different artists. I would think Jon is respectful enough to let him to run the show. After it's done, I think there is a collective conversation and Jon makes the final decisions.

I don't think Jon is out there specifically hunting down sounds. I don't even think he even listens to modern music. Certain groups are probably just recommended to him.

The last thing I think Jon is doing is jamming out to Creed with his I-Pod on. He might hear something along the way and tell his producer that he likes what this guy is doing here... should we go in this direction.... That's what Destination Anywhere was all about.

I don't think Jon lives and breathes music anymore like he once did. He's so caught up with other stuff. He wants a decent album to help promote his tour and that's it. Jon made his mark in music! He's not going for the high vocal. He's not going for the epic. He just wants the big catchy stadium anthems. He could write the best song ever and it's still going to chart the same, sell the same, and get the same airplay. I think he lets his people do the work. He'll do some tweaking afterwards and then make his decision on the best 12 out of 20 songs. If one becomes a hit, AWESOME! He probably crosses his fingers every time. If not, he'll go make 100 Million watching his fans sing those songs back to him. We Got It Going On is Jon's typical song post 2K. It's a Stadium Anthem, Easy To Sing, and Fans Eat It Up. Do you think he wants to sing Dry County Pt 2 every night? Heck No!

He said something a few years back that I thought was interesting. He didn't put Starting All Over Again on KTF because it would kill his voice to sing it every night..... So it got me thinking... he doesn't sing every song on every album (especially back then). So he probably thought that that song could be a potential hit, and purposely left it off so he wouldn't have to sing it every night. I think he would actually give up a potential hit if it was out of his live zone. I think the same applies today. I’m sure he’s got another Always or BOR in him, but doesn't want to chance singing it.

The risk is worth it.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle... while I tend to agree with you that Jon probably doesn't have the will to control every aspect when it comes to a Jovi record he has a direct line to Lucian Grainge, as does any other proven artist who could consider a few million sales a failure - as a former Universal marketing man once so eloquently put it in a lecture: "[Jon Bon Jovi] could shit in a bucket and they'd market it... and someone would buy it." (someone then immediately accused me of being that guy. I just snorted and said I already had a copy of 7800* - why would I need another? :P)