Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong
I have always found this particular track from the box set fascinating. I know the released version of Prayer so well–like every other Bon Jovi fan, I know that song inside out, upside-down and backwards. (I’ve been known to recognize it in a bar where the ambient conversation noise was so loud the people I was with didn’t even realize there was music playing until I mentioned it.) If you’re a fan, that song has been ground into your mind for eternity.
And yet the demo version from the box set revealed a dimension to the song that I hadn’t heard before. Not sure why–neither the lyrics nor the melody stray far from the final version of the song. However, the demo of Prayer from the box set is stripped of a lot of the parts and pieces that I associate with the sound of the finished song. Both Richie’s talkbox and solo are completely missing here. All that’s left is the core of the song, the beat and the vocals.
What’s left behind is a raw vocal performance that puts the emphasis on the lyrics of the song and the harmonies in the chorus. In many ways, I find that this version lets the lyrics of the song stand out more than the version that they finally recorded. I also think that the raw feel of the demo suits the lyrics.
I realize that the band has released at least two other re-imaginings of this song with ‘Prayer ’94′ and the version from This Left Feels Right. However, I don’t think that either of those is as effective as the original demo. The one from TLFR has just as much extra stuff in the track as the original, and all the extra fluff doesn’t do anything to enhance the song. (Olivia d’Abo’s vocals on the TLFR version are annoying to boot.) ‘Prayer ’94′ is better–it does effectively put the focus of the song squarely onto the story of Tommy and Gina. But it takes the song and makes it into a ballad, and it’s still a polished, final track.
Ultimately, it’s the raw feeling of this version of Prayer that gets me. It’s sort of like a brief window into the songwriting that was about to make the band completely famous. The demo is nothing but raw emotional power, in your face and challenging the world to deny the hope in the song.
Related posts:
[...] Fire Inside’ displays the technical grasp of this format that made the band great. Like the demo version of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ that’s also on the box set, this song really helped give me an insight into what made Bon Jovi [...]