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#53 We All Sleep Alone
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with We All Sleep Alone

We All Sleep Alone the first extra song we’re discussing for the New Jersey album.

New Jersey was the album that was released after their biggie, Slippery When Wet. Bon Jovi were now the biggest rock stars on the planet, and the band had to deliver. And their fourth album, by all standards, did just that.

Unfamiliar with the song?
🎶🎧 listen to We All Sleep Alone here
10 January 1990, live at Hammersmith Odeon, London
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context: DOUBLE NEW JERSEY

New Jersey would (and definitely “should”!) have been a double album, if it had been up to the band.
The record company blocked it, on grounds that they didn’t think fans would be able to pay for the higher price.
You can listen to all unreleased Bon Jovi outtakes here:
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day
The extra songs from New Jersey start at “Love is War” all the way to Bon Jovi’s secret gem “Let’s Make It Baby”.
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video recorded Friday 7 August 2026

T shirt: Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster featuring Aerosmith (2025)
Disney World Florida

Photobook behind me: Bon Jovi, The Story – Brian Reesman

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs
We’re at the first outtake! Just that it’s not an outtake, because it wasn’t recorded or written for an album.
It was one of the songs they wrote for other people:
We All Sleep Alone, for Cher’s 1987 self-titled album

Chronologically, We All Sleep Alone (1987) falls in between 1986′ Slippery When Wet album, and 1988 New Jersey.

2. The Bon Jovi- Cher connections 01:04
Cher had paused making, to build her acting career.
This made the 1987 album a comeback album.

Richie Sambora, Jon Bon Jovi, and Bon Jovi’s songwriter Desmond Child, were responsible for two songs on Cher’s 1987 self-titled album:
We All Sleep Alone;
and Bang Bang; A re-recording from the Sonny & Cher hit from the 60s.
Bang Bang had been made famous in the 60s, by Nancy Sinatra.

The involvement with Cher in 1987 is also remarkable because Bang Bang had been an acapella intro, in 1984, 1985.
Before the band would start the song “Shot Through The Heart”, Jon would perform “Bang Bang”. This was 1984, 1985, when Bon Jovi had not yet had their big break.

This makes them now writing for Cher in 1987, and the rerecording of Bang Bang, a full circle moment.

3. Richie Sambora & Cher 04:14
One of the best romances of the 80!
No drama, just two artists finding each other.

Their affair is estimated at having lasted for about half a year, and dated late 1989 early 1990.

So two years after the recording of We All Sleep Alone, and with Cher now divorced from her husband, this short relationship resulted from the collaboration as well.

4. Performance at 1990 Hammersmith Odeon 07:10
In order to be included in this series a song has to meet 2 criteria:
– be written by Bon Jovi
– performed by Bon Jovi
We All Sleep Alone was performed once by the band, on January 10 1990, the final performance of the second European leg of the New Jersey Syndicate Tour.

The tour had opened in Europe as well, late October 1988.
Then 1989 had been a spectacular year of touring the world including the Moscow Peace Festival.
January 10th 1990, they were close to wrapping up this long and extensive tour.
It was also when Richie Sambora and Cher were seeing each other.

That was when they unexpectedly played We All Sleep Alone.
Bon Jovi – We All Sleep Alone
10 January 1990, live at Hammersmith Odeon, London

5. Life lesson 14:21
Enjoy the moment!!!
You can take 36 years, to analyze it later 🤗

Next stop, the first real New Jersey album outtake:
Rosie!

~Suzanne Beenackers

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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/new-jersey-quotes
full page of quotes EVERYTHING anybody ever said about the 4th Bon Jovi album
https://twostorytown.com/singles

4. BJ TOURS
https://bjtours.jimdofree.com/the-albums/1988-new-jersey/

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