In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work,
called “100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”.
In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.

I m still early in this series, yet this post may end up being my favorite one.

This video from Miss Fourth of July live, is one of the “one-song videos” from the full concert Bargota, Atlantic City 2004, that is still available.
The full concert, where Jon gave the song an introduction [ Bon Jovi, Atlantic City 2004 ] is no longer online. Luckily, I had already written out Jon’s introduction to the song, below.

Miss Fourth of July

26 November 2020

There will be times in this Box Set series, where I supply you with a fascinating origin story of the song, hail it for its profound meaning, or conduct science experiments how few sentences it took before Jon had us crying like babies;

And then there will be times when I will diligently write out, an entire speech or full verse or chorus, because I think it should be swallowed whole and that we should not be picking it apart in an effort to understand it.

Or the third option, which is my personal favorite;
I write about why the song is about sex.

And then!
Then there is apparently the one in a 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong– chance that I just might be able to deliver all three of them! 

Because after hearing Jon’s elaborate explanation on how bad he was doing when he wrote “Miss Fourth of July” and how deep his crisis, and I then read along three verses, three repetitions of the chorus, and the outro I thought:
“This is about sex and you tried to slip it by us.”

So either, you can read along and overthink it with me.
New rare video footage to support my vision will be delivered!

OR you can just take Jon’s word for it and keep it at that, and look for a video on YouTube called:
Bon Jovi – Live at Borgata Events Center | Full Concert In Video | Atlantic City 2004
{ this is the concert that is no longer available, unfortunately, 2022 }
And start at 29 minutes 5 seconds.

This was the introduction from Jon Bon Jovi to Miss Fourth of July on the Borgota concert: 

Jon introduces Miss Fourth of July, as follows:
“This is a little something I wrote back in ’91 and a period I now refer to as the grey period. It was cloudy for about two years of my life.
It was a very interesting time because we were trying to figure out who the hell we were, as people.
The twenties were now behind me, the thirties were just coming on strong. Innocence seemed to have all be gone. But fortunately for us we got over that hump
[…]
But this is written during that period that if we didn’t get over this hump at that time we would have in fact been another one of those casualties that you hear about on “Where are the now?”.
[…]
So if you can just imagine I am in this little teeny eight by eight bedroom in Malibu California, probably either drunk or hung over, with a rented piano, and I happen to like the song more now because it doesn’t hurt as bad.
Check out the lyric, it is called The Fourth of July.”

Now, if at this point, you’re shaking your head at me.
“How can you possibly see this song as being about sex?”
Then I m going to cut you short because I too didn’t see it as being about that at this point.

Just like you, I docilely listened to the acoustic song with Jon and Richie on guitar and David Bryan on accordion.
And wept with them over losing their youth, as the price they paid for growing up touring pretty much back to back, from 1985 to 1990.
No wonder they were in crisis.

Yet there was probably already a sign that they would make it. Because contrary to other, I would almost say contrary to “most”, hardrock bands in the 80s, the Bon Jovi members were not addicted to heroin. 

The band Bon Jovi started in the early 80s, with Jon Bon Jovi delivering enough material for an entire record all by himself, before (after launching the single Runaway) they pulled together a band.

With their self-titled album (1984), their second album 7800 Fahrenheit (1985), their biggie Slippery When Wet (1986), and the absolutely brilliant shockingly good successor to that New Jersey (1988), under their belt and non.stop.touring.
– New Jersey was in fact even often “excused for” not being that good because they didn’t have time to properly innovate their music, while also touring –
that when that final tour finally ended early 1990;
Of course they were beat.
Of course they were stressed out.
Of course there was going to be a massive withdrawal from touring for years on end, that would pull each and everyone of the members into their personal versions of hell.

Of course it was going to be a time of staring into the heart of darkness.
Alone.

But! 
This did not mean that fans from Jon Bon Jovi, would have to miss out.
Early 1990, he joined the cast of Young Guns 2 on location, and started writing for the soundtrack.
The script and emotions it provided for him, gave him not just a sense of direction on what the music should be about;
It also gave him a mask.

He was not Jon Bon Jovi the singer who had probably lost his entire band and himself;
He was writing music to fit the script.
He later said he had put a lot of himself in that album Blaze of Glory, but at the time he hid behind the cowboy hat and leather clothes. 

So there I was (current day me, not 1990 Jon) listening to Miss Fourth of July and reading the lyrics.
And I stumble upon a lyric that makes me think that he did not have real sex, but only watched (a stripper, or a couple, or two women, something along those lines), and yet someone (I think his wife) was upset with him anyway.

This was the lyric, it is in the first verse:
“For a night I just watched and you walked out of here”

I don’t consider myself a knowledgeable Bon Jovi fan.
Just last Sunday I mixed up the intros from It’s My Life and Livin’ On A Prayer.
So I will never even remotely suggest you should take me seriously, as far as facts about the band go. I m not a typing encyclopedia, and often even fail to Google things.
But there is one area I am an expert at:
Sex.

And with Jon Bon Jovi, this usually means that I have a knack for when he’s talking about cheating. And even when I later find he was doing it “in character”, like in Always which was originally for a movie so it’s not his own story, I can’t imagine that he did not pour from his own experience when he wrote that.
But this is not about Always.
This is about Miss Fourth of July, that we are supposed to take at face value about being about an entirely sexless coming of age, or maybe coming of fame is more accurate, theme of a rock star finally returning home with almost Odysseus like pathos, suddenly realizing is he no longer the man who left, filled with hopes and dreams.

“For a night I just watched and you walked out of here”
This “baby-level” Bon Jovi fan, who cannot tell the difference between It’s my Life and Livin’on a Prayer intros, thinks Jon Bon Jovi tried to stay faithful within limits, yet got in an argument with his wife about it anyway. 

That’s the baseline I got when I started this blogpost. I had honestly not thought any further.
Until I started typing out that entire speech, which was a lot of work, I think I easily spent an hour on it.
And in that hour, the tiny bedroom in Malibu remark started to look very familiar. Even though Jon was referring to a two year period, I was suddenly certain this referred to the mansion he had rented, which he called “Disgraceland” and where he stayed when he recorded the Blaze of Glory record.
It is also the location where my favorite Jon Bon Jovi interview was located:
An MTV interview with Julie Brown, which was supposed to air on Independence Day.

(if you’re currently shouting “But that’s on the fourth of July!”; That is correct!) 

To mark the occasion Julie was dressed in America’s independence colors red and blue.
“Now I see where the white is,” Jon says as he lifts her skirt.

As soon as I saw this interview, which was early 2019, I knew for a fact that we had watched a genuine sexual attraction between Jon and Julie.
That it was both staged, and real.
Julie and Jon were hiding in plain sight.

The only problem this presents, now that I know that Miss Fourth Of July was written in the backlash of a one-night stand, or encounter, with someone special yet you can’t make it work, was that I no longer understood the sentence:
“For a night I just watched and you walked out of here”
I no longer know what that sentence means.

Yet Jon being messed up after Julie left, does explain many other lyrics. 
“Don’t say we never tried”
“I ain’t too proud to let you see tears fall from these eyes”
“Just look me in the eyes and say it meant nothing at all”
“Nothing but a heavy hit of heartbreak ;
A handful of blues”

” I used to live, but now I survive”

It took eight words.
Eight words to make us cry.

In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work.
In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.

video: Just like the previous song on the Box Set, Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night, might have gotten its most phenomenal speech in Osaka, Japan.
Check at the 4 minute marker.

“I’m feeling like a Monday,
But someday I’ll be Saturday night.”

I have to admit I had never really listened in depth to this song, until I encountered the “I’ll be Saturday night” demo at #4 of disc one of The Box Set.

Someday I ll Be Saturday Night was released on the 1994 “best of” album, Cross Road.
An album I didn’t own, until recently.

I had also heard the song almost every time I listened to a 1995 concert to make a video for my YouTube channel.
And yet;
I didn’t really “get” Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night until I started what I would qualify as “hoarding”, different versions of the song.
Ultimately I decided on limiting it to ten years.

You can find the playlist I created here:
Bon Jovi Someday I ll Be Saturday Night 1994 – 2004

That will also give you my channel, to subscribe for my upcoming 1995-1996 Bon Jovi reviews.

The Box Set’s demo of I’ll Be Saturday Night had been the first version of a song that would be performed live, over and over and over again.
Thematically it was comparable to Livin’ On A Prayer, meaning pushing through adversity and believing in a better future.
But it was way, way more subtle
Which might also explain why I “managed to miss it” as an absolute gem, in particular in the live legacy of Bon Jovi. 

At the 3,5 to 4 minute marker of these live songs, Jon Bon Jovi improvises. Sometimes “just” going through all the days of the week, and how hard they are.
But sometimes, like in the above audio I included of Osaka, it was a straight up motivational speech.

It’s so unreal to think that live version in Osaka was recorded twenty years ago, and here I am in 2020.
It’s a Thursday night.
I just taught an online yoga class to friends, which I had not done in a very long time. By accident, I streamed it from one of my public pages.

Now it wasn’t nude yoga or anything, but during the class I had been very conscious of my body, and of what I will just call the “weirdness” of yoga;
Something you usually do not have to deal with, until you start including “puppy pose” in your classes in the park, or into your YouTube videos.

Or until you find out you accidentally streamed a private yoga class on your public page.

Those are the moments when Jon’s words in Osaka, really hit home.

At 4 minutes 33 seconds, in speaking voice:

“I feel like that sometimes.
It’s true.
But when I do, I say;
“Self?”

The beat picks up, Jon’s voice strengthens;

“You gotta just dust yourself off.”

And I say:
“Self;
You gotta put on the gloves, jump in the ring and go in there for one more fight.”

And I say:
“Self, we ain’t gonna back down this time! 
Ain’t nobody is gonna come and throw the towel in this time! 
Ain’t nobody is gonna tell me they’re gonna save my ass this time!

NO!!”

And then the chorus comes in.
And this time the words really hit home, and there is no way you’re gonna ever forget it again!

“HEY! 
MAN!
I’M ALIVE! 

I m taking each day and night at a time.

Yes I’m down
But I know I ll get by.

Hey, hey, hey, hey!
Man, I m gonna live my life.
I’m gonna pick up all the pieces of what’s left of my pride
I’m feeling like a Monday but -“

Someday I’ll be Saturday night.

“Japan always seems to be getting the best shows.
As if the deal was sealed, by that enthusiastic response on that very first world tour.”

video: The Radio Saved My Life Tonight, performed in Osaka (Japan!) with a speech at 3 minutes 10 seconds, about how Jon Bon Jovi (then still without band) started his career.

In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work.
In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.

Today I’m doing two songs.
Song number 3, Taking It Back.
And the second song on the first disc, a song they played many times on the tour that followed the Box Set release;

THE RADIO SAVED MY LIFE TONIGHT

What is immediately apparent listening to this second song on disc one of The Box Set, is that the song is a finished, polished recording.
It was obviously not dropped until the very final stages of Keep the Faith (1992)

It’s one of Bon Jovi’s lighter songs, less heavy on the guitar and drums, and that always makes it a tough cookie when it comes to winning my love.
This song is no exception.

But nevertheless:
If you were in a position as a band, that you could drop catchy songs like this for your record?

Even I understand the level you were playing at.
The very highest.

TAKING IT BACK

What do you get if you mix AC/DC with Bon Jovi?
Taking It Back
One of the many amazing 90s songs that were released in 2004,
on the box set 100.000.000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong.

But the song that closest resembles “Taking it back” is one of their own.
On the album 7800 Fahrenheit (1985) there is the song “Tokyo Road”.

Tokyo Road studio version (official)
or
Tokyo Road played live in Japan 1985, including introduction of band

7800 Fahrenheit was the album right before their biggie Slippery When Wet (1986).
It “should have” been the big break for the band and then wasn’t.
And the reason expectations were so high, is related to Tokyo Road.

The first self-titled Bon Jovi album, Bon Jovi-Bon Jovi (1984) had not brought them “world fame” but nevertheless;
It had done exceptionally well.
Not just in sales, but the band had also toured the world.
Just check this site which still contains a list of all the continents and places the then relatively unknown band from New Jersey toured with just one album under their belt;
http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/01_BonJovi/Live.html

Especially in Japan, Bon Jovi had been hugely popular.
They had been kind of shook by the attention, but (of course) also flattered.

With a debut album like that, expectations for their second album were high.
Ultimately their second album wasn’t the big breakthrough they all had been expecting based upon (among other things) their popularity in Japan.
But Tokyo Road on that second album 7800 Fahrenheit, was a reminder of how far they were on their way.
They had already toured the world!

And seven years later “Take me Baaaack, baaaacck, back; Tokyo Road!”
would echo in the song called “Taking it Back” (1992/ Box Set 2004)
A song about which Jon Bon Jovi said;
“We knew that we had to take control of our own destiny and songs like ‘Taking It Back’ were sung from the point of view of that chip’s back on my shoulder and I’m ready to launch into phase two of the band’s career.”

With regard to the topic (one night stand from Tokyo Road versus the fighter’s mentality of Taking It Back) the two songs Tokyo Road (Take me back) from the Fahrenheit album, and Taking It Back, the unreleased song from 1992, might seem worlds apart.
But they are brothers in arms.
Both were written at a time when Bon Jovi wanted to prove they belonged at the top.
And both songs were ultimately largely forgotten.

And yet: Their presence had been prophetic.

Bon Jovi kept coming back to Japan, every world tour.
And from what I think I see – Japan always seems to be getting the best shows.
As if the deal was sealed, by that enthusiastic response on that very first world tour.

And Bon Jovi did raise the bar with their Keep The Faith album;
They did take back, what was rightfully theirs.

The place at the top.

“If you don’t have Bon Jovi there with you in the room, and want to build a party?
My suggestion is you just bring out the big guns and press play on;
“Why Aren’t You Dead” 

video: The only Bon Jovi concert that included songs from the box set. “Why Aren’t You Dead” opens the show.

In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work.
In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
“Why Aren’t You Dead” is the first track, and it opens the concert they gave with a selection of the songs:
Jump on the table and sing along!

I don’t know a song that would be more of a party anthem, than Sleep When I’m Dead, performed live. Richie dials up on the guitars, Tico beats the shit out of them drums and Jon Bon Jovi just pushes and pushes and pushes until we are dancing on the bar, covered in beer and loving it!

Just see for yourself, in this magnificent  Sleep When I’m Dead, LIVE video!