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#38 The Promise
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with The Promise

This is the ninth “outtake”;
A song that was never included on the album.

The Promise was written for Bon Jovi’s third album Slippery When Wet (1986).

Unfamiliar with the song?
🎶🎧 listen here to The Promise

video recorded Monday 17 November 2025

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.
We’re at the outtakes, songs that were never released on a studio album.
But there’s different levels of outtakes!
There are the ones who did eventually end up on “The Box Set” (100.000.000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong, 2004) and well – those that didn’t😅

The number of rare Bon Jovi songs is so large, that I created a list, collecting them all:
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

And we’re definitely in the deepest trenches of the outtakes!
Of songs even AI had never heard of.
And we’ll probably be here (looking for the rarest of songs of record number 3, Slippery When Wet) until well into January 2026.
But alas!
This is where we are.
—
I briefly mention my other channels.
They’re @TheNewRockStarChannel (basically it’s The Lessons, without the Bon Jovi songs😅)and @suzannebeenackersschrijver (Dutch)
—

2. The Promise 03:02
It’s an acoustic song, about a romance between two young people. The song has a very melancholic, past tense vibe to it, which begs the question:
“Who is Jon singing about?”

You can read the lyrics of the song here:
https://www.letras.com/bon-jovi/297461/

I’m gonna go with The Promise being about Diane Lane, whom he dated in 1985.

3. Diane Lane 05:52
Although it was presumably only a 5 month relationship between her and Jon Bon Jovi, and one in which he felt betrayed by her;
She ended up being instrumental to the band’s success!

I also refer to a meta I wrote, about their romance.
You can find it here:
A Meta on JBJ and Diane Lane
| Secret Dreams by Bon Jovi (Fahrenheit album, 1985)
| blog post { pre-work for YouTube video }

4. Life lesson 07:17
If indeed, both the fiery You Give Love A Bad Name as well as the melancholic The Promise are about Diane Lane, then what does that teach us?
I’ll give you my two cents on it, but basically, that life is complex 🧐

And that it’s not uncommon for the extraverted and the visible, to have a secret, hidden, counterpart.

Next stop, the 10th outtake;
Lonely Is The Night!

~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
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THIS SERIES
All videos, of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

SOURCES for this series:

1. OUTTAKES
Handmade list with rare Bon Jovi songs
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

2. RANKED
My favorite Bon Jovi article and indispensable for this series:
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bon-jovi-songs-ranked/
By Tony Kuzminski.
List also covers any outtakes from the 2004 box set.

3. QUOTES
https://twostorytown.com/slippery-when-wet-quotes
full page of quotes EVERYTHING anybody ever said about the 3rd Bon Jovi album:

4. BJ TOURS
https://bjtours.jimdofree.com/the-albums/1986-slippery-when-wet/

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