Forty years later, we’re all still just “Livin’ on a Prayer!”
Ultimate Classic Rock just listed the Bon Jovi hit from 1986 as their 78th top rock song of all time.
The song is off the band’s third album, “Slippery When Wet,” and hit the No.1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1987.
In a 2024 interview with Gold Radio, Bon Jovi frontman Jon Bon Jovi said that when he, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child were first writing the song, he thought it was “just another good song to put on the pile.”
But things changed when they started rehearsing the song and realized they just might have a hit on their hands.
“When we went to rehearsal that took on a life of its own. Because we were aware that we needed to develop a line and we were thinking of ‘Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch’ and like Motown stuff like that,” he recalled.
The song, with lyrics about Tommy working the docks with a dream of getting his guitar out of hock and Gina working in a diner, were inspired by the band’s own experiences with harder times.
Child told Inside Blackbird in 2025 that Bon Jovi told him he wanted to “write a song about a working-class couple that’s struggling” and took inspiration from his own life when he “would stay home writing songs and [his girlfriend] was working as a waitress.”
He also said Bon Jovi was inspired by “people that he remembered from high school that were married very young and struggled.”
“We brought that all together into this one song that to this day means so much to so many generations of people,” Child added.
Here’s to another 40 years of “Livin’ on a Prayer!”
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