What's the origin of Keep the Faith?
 

Does anyone of you know the origin of the song ‘Keep the Faith’? Did anyone of you hear or read an interview with Jon or Richie explaining what made them write this song? I mean lyrically and musically. Was there any particular thing, situation, event, person etc. that influenced them to write this song?

This is my favourite song and album and I am very interested in how it was written. In my home country there wasn’t much info about the band in the early 90’s so I wasn’t able to get that info. So maybe now in the internet era I will find someone that can help me with this. I even tried to ask Obie about it but I understand that out of thousands questions he receives per day, he did not even see the one from me. I would be very thankful if you could share your knowledge about it. And if there is such thread on board already please send me the link to this (I couldn’t find it though).

was it not about keeping the faith in 'yourself' throughout the depression in america at that time??

ans also like a sort of double message, i.e keep the faith in the band itself?

Aloha !

Keep The Faith was written from a perspective coming from the band as in saying "as long as we keep the faith and keep believing in ourselves we just might make it big again".

It was also written from a viewpoint where society got grimmer and people started to lose hope with society which eventually would become another subject on the These Days record when Grunge and all it's negativity (life sucks etcetera) got big.

I think the verses refer to things that were happening back at that time but I can't remember what exactly. I've never really read stuff about the lyrical content of songs on the Keep The Faith album, apart from Dry County that is, and the verses of Faith are pretty vague compared to most of the straightforward stuff like In These Arms and Blame It On The Love.

For many bands coming from the eighties this "life sucks" thing was not for them, and Bon Jovi wrote a song about what kept the band together and what should keep people together.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Was it not written about the riots?

Aloha !

The LA riots happened in 1992 and Keep The Faith was written in 1991/1992. Originally the song was different and there's a bad recording of the original song out there.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I have a RIP magazine interview I picked up just prior to KTF's release that really spotlighted the lyrics on the album. I'll have to see if I can dig it up.

I thought it was about the LA Riots. I remember something about the song originally being called Revenge.

Boo

Thank you all for the answers. All of them make sense. I haven't heard about the LA riots before. I have just checked wikipedia and I was shocked. It might be one of the reasons, it fits the lyrics in some parts.

If you could find it that would be fantastic. Please let me know if you do.

I didn't know about any other version of the song. Do you know where I could find it?

It was definitaly about the riots in Seattle. Jon mentioned that several times during that era, ie promoting KTF. I can remember that clearly, I dunno why, somehow it made a impact :)