If I Was Your Mother
 

I just listened to this song with fresh ears and rewatched the video clip... daaammm this song rocks. It's so under rated too. It's heavy, it's dark. it's different, it's lyrically twisted. Jon's vocals and passion are epic. The bass and drum line is so good. And the hook is so catchy with the awesome backing vocals. Not to mention a fantastic guitar solo. Everything about this song is amazing.

While I prefer I Believe, In These Arms, Bed of Roses and Keep the Faith, this song absolutely rocks and is in the top half of the tracks on what is an AMAZING album.

I've just found a new appreciation for it.

Your thoughts?

Absolutely loving this tune! Heard it dozens of times from Bounce at it delivered amazing energy time and time again :)

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Yes - totally agree. I always wished it got more attention at the time. Although they made a video I don't think that helped with the popularity, as I think it could have actually worked as a single with more of a dark Metallica/GnR type storyboard video of the time, but that was never really Bon Jovi until after the Keep The Faith album.

It was very Bob Rock's Metallica sound from their Black album the year before too and is a seamless transition from him working with Metallica onto KTF I think - it could almost have been from Metallica's Black album. Not sure what they would think about that!

I'd hoped for more of that darker, heavier grungey type sound from KTF rather than Sleep When I'm Dead, which I thought was a bit out of place on that album.

AFAIK it wasn't a single and the video was just a bonus video for the KTF VHS collection of music videos. Feel free to correct me if anyone knows better though!

Yes, that's right - it wasn't a single.

Great song! I remember back when I heard it for the first time it didn’t really work for me because I thought the lyrics were too weird, but eventually it clicked and now I think the fact that the lyrics are so weird and twisted is part of what makes it so brilliant. And it’s a total rocker of course!


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Brilliant song. The first seven tracks on Keep The Faith are flawless.

I know what Jon meant in the song, but a man singing If I Was Your Mother didn't do a lot for me.

Love the bridge to this song! Always hypes me up for the final chorus. BJ were and always will be good at writing bridges.

I see what you mean, but I actually really enjoyed those (what I would call) classic rock tunes like Sleep as you mentioned, Blame It On The Love…, A Little Bit of Soul

I totally understand, and I have no problem with the two you mention, or any of the songs on KTF...just something about Sleep (for that time), the production/arrangement and maybe where it was placed on the album, was never the right thing for me. I could actually see it more on These Days, or performed live then released as a single during the KTF tour. Just me I suppose.

I'd like to have seen Radio Saved My Life replace it on the album.

It's my favorite video. It's so simple, GREAT song!!!

Aloha !

I think the song is awful and sounds like Bon Jovi making a parody on what Metallica sounded like on the Black album. It's Bon Jovi making hardrock for people who don't like hardrock.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

That parody sounds so much better than Let It Rock.

But isn't that the story of Bon Jovi from the beginning? I thought we all assume that.... and despite all, that song still ****ing cool.


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Didn't really care for the song when I first heard the album back in 2001, but have grown to really love it. Felt very out of place sat between "Bed of Roses" and "Dry County", and still does, but it hits you like a train when those drums and that MetallicA-esque riff kicks in.

The song does feel very all over the place, especially when you first hear it, and that's what probably made it more difficult to get into at first. Jon's vocals are razorsharp on this song as well.

The similarities to "Black Album" MetallicA I'm guessing are due to both being a product of Bob Rock and being released within a year of eachother.

Not hearing a lot of Metallica in the riffage - it's actually busier than most of the riffs on the Black Album (which is VERY much to the point with little fills and what not in the main riffs). But the sound and the intent sure were there. But I hear more of Richie doing Lep Zeppelin in it.

Great song either way. Prefer it over Sleep When I'm Dead for sure, and yeah, it's downhill after track 7 for that album. But this is track 6, so it's all good!

Sleep and Little Bit of Soul are my two least favourite tracks on the album (not to say they're bad), but I LOVE Blame it on the Love. I always wished they used that on tours and as the single instead (even though it would be a bitch to sing live!).

Really good song, Jon has an excellent voice.

Killer tune. This is the band adopting the Grunge sound.

Bob Rock's production is all over it from the Dr Feelgood album to the Metallic Black album.

The band is not trying to be Metallica... During this period, all the 80s bands were adopting the grunge sound. Warrant, Motley Crue, Def Leppard and more were making full albums. Bon Jovi did a song.



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I wouldn’t exactly call “IIWYM” a grunge song, but more of a really heavy hard rock song. It’s like you said, a Metallica/Bob Rock Black Album track but written and performed by Bon Jovi.

The song totally slaps coming after “Bed of Roses”.

But it is nothing like Metallica in terms of the song, I don't get why this comparison is made. Just because of Bob Rock I guess because the guitars, drums, vocals, melodies, are nothing like the Metallica album. Which song on Metallica do you most relate it to?

Perhaps it is just many people relate heavy music to Metallica, not that If I Was Your Mother is really heavy at all.

I probably should have been more clear. I never said it sounded like a specific song or a song that could have been on that album. I meant production-wise, thanks to Bob Rock during that era, it’s very Black-Album-MetallicA-esqe with the drum sound and the guitar tones. Not purely because it’s “heavier” than what we’re used to for the band.

I guess the guitar crunch has shades of Sad But True, but as I said before, I hear way more Zeppelin/Homebound Train in it than any particular Metallica composition.

The guitar tone is with the high compressed gain, really low mids is really reminiscent of the black albums tone. That's about it where the comparison begins and ends for me. A lot of bands were keen on re-creating that guitar sound around that time....

Killer track on my favourite album of my favourite band of all time. The snng, the lyric, the drums, the guitar, jon's voice... it is all to the limit in this song. The riff is amongs the heaviest in their catalogue and their production with Bob Rock at that time was perfect. It was indeed after Metallica's Black Album and Motley Crue's Dr. Feelgood. To me KTF is their most advanced album. It sounded different, yet it relied on all their strengths. They had successfully pushed the envelope a little further as they said and it wasn't slippery 3 or New Jersey 2. If I was your mother is like a hidden treasure in their catalogue. A deep cut that has been extremely overlooked showing Jon's songwriting abilities.

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ktf was released in height of grunge. Bon Jovi had to release an album that made people notice them while the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana hogged the limelight.

For me its the best album they couldve made. The first 7 songs are superb. Drops a bit after then. Fear is a great song sandwhiched in 3 poorer tracks but it picks up again at the end with Little bit of Soul and one of my fav ever Jovi tracks, Save a Prayer.

This album was make or break as other bands from the Jovi era had fallen by the wayside despite releasing some great albums - Warrants Dog Eat Dog, Poisons Native Tongue and Crues 94 are just 3 of the amazing albums lost to grunge for example.



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Well said. Def Leppard Slang too

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Not a good comparison, in my opinion.

KTF came out in 1992, the same year Def Leppard released Andrenalize, which was also very successful, but very much in line with Lange-era Leppard sound-wise.

Slang came out in 1996 and had a lot more grunge influences, while the genre was already on its last legs. If anything, it was already outdated, as Cobain was obviously already dead and Pearl Jam was moving away from classic grunge sound with No Code album, which sounded more like garage rock. Slang is darker than Leppard's other stuff and has some diehard fanbase appreciation, so on that regard, it's closer to being a Leppard's These Days-equivalent, rather than KTF.

Keep The Faith came out when grunge was at its peak but I don't think this album really took much influence from this genre. When I listen to Keep the Faith, Metallica's Black Album (If I Was Your Mother) comes to mind, as well as Guns N Roses' Use Your Illusions (Bed Of Roses, Dry County) and Bryan Adams' Waking Up the Neighbors (I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Blame It On The Love Of Rock & Roll, Little Bit Of Soul). If I had to name one album that really influenced the change, it was U2's Actung Baby (the opening track I Believe is obvious)... Even Jon created a new image for the new times. Luckily the album still has its personality, songs like Keep The Faith and In These Arms are really great.

For me, their album with Grunge influences was These Days, since that album feels darker, with a sadder atmosphere and a little more pessimistic, songs with anger, and their sound for the first time is drier and more organic. It probably all started with Someday I'll Be Saturday Night.

i dont really hear grunge on These Days just a band massively changing direction. Agree you get an idea of the direction when they released Saturday Night as a single. Always was a great ballad that couldve been on KTF.
Ive said many times on here that when they released These Days that I was hugely underwhelmed by it thinking they had released a poor album. I was dealing with the nearing end of a near 7 year relationship (i was only 20 at the time in 95) and it was on its knees when These Days came out.
I needed Jovi to pick me up but this album didnt it made me more fed up - where were the anthems? The huge chorus? They had changed and gone darker but for me I wouldnt say grunge.
Over the years its become my 2nd fav Jovi album and its a band at its peak songwriting and musically.

In 96 Grunge was dead, like glam and hair metal before it in the end the market was flooded with Nirvana and Pearl Jam wannabes and every band sounded the same. As you say bands were tweaking their sound to leave grunge behind.

alice in chains - alice in chains
anthrax - stomp 442
def leppard - vault - but new song love and hate was an Always rip off - bit darker for leppard
Extreme - waiting for the punchline
faith no more - king for a day
iron maiden - x factor
love/hate - im not happy
red hot chillis - one hot minute
skid row - subhuman race
slaughter - fear no evil
van halen - balance
warrant - ultraphobic


Just a few of the albums in 95 where bands had tweaked their sound. I dont see these as grungy just a darker but i guess that is where the grunge comparison kicks in as grunge forced these bands to rethink.
All these bands last albums were around 92/93 so by time 95 came around these bands had to change their sound a bit. Grunge without doubt played a part in these bands subject matter. It went from partying and getting a hot girl to break ups and suicide.

Thats why a lot of these albums failed as their fans didnt want that subject from these bands. Who wanted Warrant getting serious (at the time)? but they had to do something different as their best album Dog Eat Dog was completly lost to grunge. Ultraphobic is another great Warrant album btw

I think thats why fans will say for example, skid rows subhuman race, is their grunge album. Its not, it was driven by grunge to tweak the sound and subject matter.

For me after 1996 Metal and Rock went into a massive decline especially between 96-00 there where a good few years of poor albums and new bands coming out just didnt have the same quality of previous bands.

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Aa,

I totally agree and echoes my previous posts on it. Whereas nearly every other song on KTF I can picture on a different Bon Jovi album with a different sound/arrangement and producer, I don't think IIWYM would exist/been released without the Bob Rock/Black album production style of that time.

Definitely. It was a good balance for the time, and that transition phase - just as you say on a later post about the style of albums people wanted (or didn't want) from bands then, Jon got it right with not going too far - keep the light with the shade etc. Of course I still wish Sleep When I'm Dead wasn't on it but I guess Jon knew best! :) Keeping Bon Jovi popular and credible, and riding out the failure of most of the other 80s rock/hair bands at that time was quite an achievement by Jon I think.

Yeah Sleep is the weakest out of 1st 7 songs

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Maybe, yeah. Although, it is still a top song that has been worn out by the consistency it is played live.

It's a brilliant album, brilliant songs. First 7 are as good a side A as the band ever put out .

Some weak ass stuff on the B side but my god , what a record .

Jon wrote most of the tracks but the contributions from the band and their performances that were captured are just amazing. Totally on point . Richie is just all over Dry County and bed of roses . In these arms I just hear his vocals on the chorus . Amazing record

For a bit of fun I'll share this to see what people's thoughts are! I never mind good or bad! I like opinion! Faith and These Days were the two albums I felt could be improved either by song choice or tracklisting (or both). I made 'my' version of Keep The Faith and always listen to it this way now...

I Believe
Keep The Faith
In These Arms
Fear
I Want You
The Radio Saved My Life Tonight
If I Was Your Mother
Dry County
Woman In Love
Bed Of Roses
Save A Prayer
Blame It On The Love Of Rock n' Roll
Little Bit Of Soul

:)

Would drop Woman In Love and I Want You for Radio and Miss 4th of July. If I was forced down to 12 tracks, IIWYM might have to go.

I usually listen to the album as it is, but I admit that sometimes I use a playlist on my phone with a different tracklist.

I Believe
Keep The Faith
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
In These Arms
Bed Of Roses
If I Was Your Mother
Dry County
Good Guys Don't Always Wear White
Fear
Save A Prayer
Blame It On The Love Of Rock n' Roll
Little Bit Of Soul


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