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.