All About You
So I'm at my local Best Buy, walking around perusing the CD titles, when what do I happen upon but an absolute bargain, a downright steal, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet for $6.99! Okay, sure I'm a loser who still enjoys random 80s hair bands. This true. But come on, it's a great album. Seriously. Hey, wait....where are you going?
Don't worry, I don't plan to wax poetic about every last track on the album. Just one. And one from another Bon Jovi album. And the big question is, has anyone in the history of music ever parlayed the overuse of rhyming the word "you" with itself like Jon Bon Jovi? I mean, obviously, we're not granting him genius lyrical status anyway considering such gems as "Our love is like a hunger, baby we'd die without it." But the man can work the shit out of y-o-u.
To wit, from Slippery When Wet's eighth track, "I'd Die For You":
I'd die for you
I'd cry for you
I'd do anything
I'd lie for you
You know it's true
Baby I'd die for you
I'd die for you
I'd cry for you
If it came right down to me and you
You know it's true, Baby I'd die for you
That's right, count 'em, EIGHT "you" sightings in that chorus. But Jon wasn't done. No, he didn't get all the "you"s out of his system on Slippery When Wet. So he and the boys came back with a vengence on their next album, New Jersey, and put out another you-filled winner in "I'll Be There For You." Here's the refrain:
I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you
Once again, eight times JBJ manages to use "you" in a chorus. It makes me wonder, is this some mystical number for Bon Jovi? Can he do no more and no less of the same word in a chorus? Is this a fine-print stipulation from his deal with the devil? I must have answers. In the meantime, I'll settle for waving my lighter over my head while I listen to "Never Say Goodbye."