As you know if you follow this blog, music didn’t mean much to me for a large portion of my life. Through all of high school and most of college, there was very little in the way of music that I felt at all strongly about.
Posts Tagged ‘Blaze of Glory’
Of Stress and Songs
Friday, February 18th, 2011What makes a favorite album?
Friday, October 1st, 2010I’ve counted Richie Sambora’s Stranger In This Town as my favorite album from the first time I listened to it. But I’ve never quite been able to quantify exactly why that one album made such a deep impression.
Santa Fe live at the O2!
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010This just goes to show that I need to pay attention to my own blogroll around here. Lee-Ann picked up on this over a week ago (she’s got the video of ‘Santa Fe’ and a few others over at Blame It On The Love, so I won’t repost ‘em here).
‘Santa Fe’ is only one of my favorite songs of all time… and it took me this long to catch up on my reading and figure out that they actually did this live at the O2. Makes me wish I lived in London, because the lucky folks in the audience at the O2 shows have gotten plenty of treats. (See also the blue sleeveless shirt that Jon was wearing in that video.)
Anyway, ‘Santa Fe’ has been one of my favorite songs ever since I first brought home my copy of Blaze of Glory. It has actually come up a couple of times when I was writing Random Song posts for this blog, but I always skipped it because I wasn’t sure that I could do justice to the song, or my feelings about it. Something about the powerful delivery in this song just spoke to me. It’s certainly one of Jon’s best outings as both a songwriter and a performer.
(I substantiate that claim by the fact that several people have simply refused to believe that the song they were hearing could possibly have been a Jon Bon Jovi song. The least insulting of these was my mother, who merely thought that it was Richie.)
That legendary status made me a little nervous when I saw the video show up on Lee-Ann’s blog, doubly so when I saw that it was one of the acoustic performances. I guess I was a little bit afraid that it might have gotten TLFR’d, or that Jon’s voice wouldn’t hold up, and I’d be disappointed.
Ultimately, though, it was anything but disappointing. Sure, the acoustic performance doesn’t quite have the same fire as the original, but it still works. Part of it is that Jon performs the song straight–it’s not a re-imagining (the TLFR treatment that I had feared) but just the real thing. Right down to the “Lord have mercy” before the solo. Jon doesn’t soar in quite the same way as the original, but his voice was great in this performance.
Also, Dave’s accordion is actually quite welcome here. I actually find its sound to be superior to the strings in the original recording.
And on a final note, I have to say thank you to Lee-Ann for gathering up all of these great videos, not just from the O2, but from all of the tour.
My Current Top 10 Songs (June 2010)
Friday, June 4th, 2010There are the songs that you consider to be your favorites, and then there are the songs that you actually listen to. And at least for me, the two don’t always line up. Here, I present my current top 10 songs, according to the play count in Windows Media Player:
- Poison
Artist: Alice Cooper
Album: Trash
I knew I liked this song–after all, I specifically ordered Trash just to get it. But I had no idea that I played it so much that it had gotten all the way to #1! - Hell is Living Without You
Artist: Alice Cooper
Album: Trash
Not a surprise here–this is actually one of my favorites, being a collaboration between Alice, Richie, Jon and Desmond Child, and I knew I listened to it a lot. It’s in most of my custom playlists. - Cum on Feel the Noize
Artist: Quiet Riot
Okay, a bit of a surprise here. I like Quiet Riot well enough, but they aren’t one of my all-time favorite bands. But evidently I really like this song. - Roulette
Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: Bon Jovi
Odd choice here. I’m guessing because it shows up early in the list when I list out all of the songs in my collection, so I end up starting here a lot. Otherwise, I don’t really seek this one out. - This Ain’t a Love Song
Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: These Days
I would have actually expected this one to rank a bit higher–in the #1 or 2 range, because this is actually a favorite that I do seek out on a fairly regular basis. - Rainbow in the Dark
Artist: Dio
Album: Holy Diver
I would have put this one as another of my top favorites–I know I seek this one out a lot, and include it in my playlists. - Why Aren’t You Dead
Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: 100,000,000 Million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong
This isn’t a song that I truly think of as one of my favorites–if I were asked, I probably wouldn’t list it in my favorites. But I do include in a lot of playlists, which most likely accounts for its rank. - Temptation
Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: 100,000,000 Million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong
This is another song that I would have expected to clock in much higher. This is one of the songs that I truly do think of as a favorite–but I guess I don’t actually listen to it as often as I would have thought. - Santa Fe
Artist: Jon Bon Jovi
Album: Blaze of Glory
Another well-liked but not essential track. Evidently I listen to it way more than I thought I did. - Nobody’s Hero / Livin’ on a Prayer (demo)
Artist: Bon Jovi
Album: 100,000,000 Million Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong
I think this only got up this high because I replayed it a bunch of times when I was writing up a random song post on it. I can’t think of any other explanation for it.
I find it interesting that there are no songs whatsoever from Stranger In This Town–even though I’ve long considered that to be my favorite album of all time. Also conspicuously absent–anything from Slippery When Wet–only the most essential Bon Jovi album ever…
Random Song: Dyin’ Ain’t Much of a Livin’
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010Artist: Jon Bon Jovi
Album: Blaze of Glory
I realized after I had already started this post that I’ve managed to pull two of Jon’s solo songs in a row. It didn’t even occur to me at first because Jon’s two solo albums are so radically different. In a lot of ways, I’m like one of the old fans–I never really could embrace Destination Anywhere, but I sure never had a problem with Blaze of Glory.
Dyin’ Ain’t Much of a Livin’ first made its way onto a lot of my playlists because I could sing along with it. I can sing okay, (at least if I know the song) but I have a fairly limited range. I get bit by my range a lot when I do vocals on Rock Band. I’ll be doing okay, but every once in awhile I’ll hit a song that hangs around right outside of my range.
I like the lyrics on this song as well. With any song off of Blaze of Glory, you need to accept it for what it is–it was a themed work. But in the case of this song, I think the theme of the album actually helped with the songwriting in a lot of ways. Jon’s songwriting is criticized (and often rightly so) for being cliched. In this song though, while it sometimes comes pretty close, it never really descends into a full-blown litany of cliches that it might have been. In a lot of ways, this particular song is one of the closest to poetry that Jon has ever produced.
Maybe with the limited vocal range required for this song, it might make it onto the set list for the next tour. I forgot about it when I did the post on the five rarities I’d like to see included in the set list for the Circle Tour, but it’d fit in with Jon’s limitations and it’s a great song.