It’s taken me several times to warm up to this track. The first few times that I heard it, Thorn in My Side just seemed really whiny to me. (Whinier than anything from Lost Highway, that’s for sure, and that was supposed to be country!) Plus, Jon kind of takes the title and beats it to death in the chorus.
Anyway, after a few times through, this track started to become less objectionable. It’s got a good riff underneath it, and there aren’t any musical missteps to knock me out of the groove. Even if the lyrics and lead vocals here aren’t the greatest, the music on this track more than makes up for it. If anything, this song is more powered by Richie and Tico, which isn’t a bad thing at all. Also, this song makes far more effective use of rests to build the tension of the song than Bullet before it.
Also, this song makes room for a big solo for Richie, which scores points in its favor. And Richie takes advantage of that opportunity to deliver another resounding solo. The way the solo grows naturally from the chorus before and builds up to an epic climax is beautiful work and demonstrates the epic playing skill that Richie can display when he wants. (Between the solo from this song and the new one from We Weren’t Born to Follow, one might think that Richie was working on a demo tape for Guitar Hero: Bon Jovi.)
If I consider the song as a complete package, it’s an acceptable addition to the Bon Jovi catalog. It’s not Jon’s finest moment, but Richie manages to steal the show on this track.
Related posts:
- We Weren’t Born to Follow (Album Track)
- When We Were Beautiful (album track)
- Live Before You Die (album track)
- Bullet (album track)
- Brokenpromiseland (album track)
Tags: Bon Jovi, Guitar Hero, The Circle
Hey I found this site as one of the most interesting sites in the internet to review BJ music, you really try to look at BJ songs as objective as u could be and I really admire that.
Now regarding this song I had to go through it many times to actually let it grow on me and I can say I have learned to love it as one of my favorites in this record. There are moments of it that reminds me a lot of the song “I talk to Jesus”. I think that if Jon would have recorded this song 17 years ago it would have been higher and would have sound a lot better. However, I love the fact that we dont need Jon at his best to have the band build a solid song.
I totally agree with you about Richie´s solo. The way it builds up to an epic climax was the moment that got me listening to this song over and over again, which eventually let this song grow..cuz next time I listened this song and reached “I´ve been knocked down…” I was so freaking anctious to listen Richie´s solo.
Regarding the lyrics, this is something interesting, I don´t know if it is due to the fact that I am not an english speaker (I am from Costa Rica…so now you may understand why my grammar and/or spelling sux) but when I translate the lyrics – at least to spanish – they have such a beautiful way to put the words together. I have read a lot of comments of other songs where people complains about lyrical content but to me and other people who doesnt speak english as a primary language the lyrics are damn perfect.
Well, I just wanted to leave my 2 cents here since – seriously – this is the only site I have ever found good enough to discuss any BJ song or record. Keep it up!
=)
I’m glad that you feel comfortable commenting here. Feel free to come back anytime.
Personally, I’ve always found the quality of Bon Jovi’s lyrics to be variable. They do lean on some cliched phrases—but they can come up with pretty good lyrics too sometimes. My main problem with this song is how many times Jon repeats the phrase ‘thorn in my side’. It kind of starts to border on annoying for me, but that’s purely my personal taste.
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