Bon Jovi Tours

These Days

Released on June 27, 1995

16th Ave. Sound, Nashville, Tennesse

Bearsville Sound Studios, Woodstock, New York

Sanctuary I, New Jersey

One On One Studios, Hollywood, California

Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood, California

A&M Studios, Los Angeles, California

Tracklist:

01. Hey God - Jon Bon Jovi Richie Sambora - 6:03

02. Something For The Pain - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child - 4:46

03. This Ain't A Lovesong - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child - 5:06

04. These Days - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 6:26

05. Lie To Me - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 5:34

06. Damned - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 4:35

07. My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 6:10

08. (It's Hard) Letting You Go - Jon Bon Jovi - 5:50

09. Hearts Breaken Even - Jon Bon Jovi, Desmond Child - 5:05

10. Something To Believe In - Jon Bon Jovi - 5:25

11. If That's What It Takes - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 5:17

12. Diamond Ring - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child - 3:46

Bonus Tracks

13. All I Want Is Everything - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 5:18

14. Bitter Wine - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 4:36

Personnel
Jon Bon Jovi - Lead vocals / Guitar
Richie Sambora - Lead guitar / Backing vocals
Tico Torres - Drums / Percussion
David Bryan - Keyboards / Backing vocals

Additional Personnel
Hugh McDonald - Bass guitar
Randy Jackson - Bass guitar
David Cambell - arranger (strings)
Suzie Katayama - String contractor, accordion
Tommy Funderburk - Backing vocals
Rory Dodd - Backing vocals
Jerry Cohen – Keyboards
Robbie Buchanon - Keyboards and programming

The Miami Horns:
Richie LaBamba - Trombone
Jerry Vivino - Tenor sax
Mark Pender - Trumpet

Engineers
David Thoener
Obie O'brien
Mark Springer
Mar Mason
Chris Laidlaw
Jim Labinski
Pete Martinez
Michael Scotella
Tal Miller
Manny Lecouna
Ryan Freeland

Producer

Peter Collins

Jon Bon Jovi

Richie Sambora

Chartpositions

 Chartname                                                       Peak position                                    Weeks in chart

Singles

The Videos

• Due to delays on finishing the album, the video for the first single, This Ain’t A Love Song, was shot while the band was already touring in the Far East. The video was filmed in Bombay.

• Lie To Me exists in two different versions: one with a storyline about Tommy and Gina and band cuts inserted and one with the band alone. Both got published on the band’s official Youtube channel.

• These Days exists in three different versions: the released video had the band performing with tour cuts added to it, one was just the band’s performance and the third one was in fact the credits video on the “Live from London” concert release.

• The character who displayed Tommy in the Lie To Me video also starred in the clip for Something For The Pain, though no further reference to Tommy and Gina is added there.

• In 1996, on the back of the album’s success in Europe and Asia, another video clip for the song Hey God was produced.

Trivia

• The album was supposed to be released in 1994. But the band took so long for the recording and writing process that Cross Road was released instead and These Days followed one year later. Jon recalled the delay: “[…] We started recording in Nashville but ended up trashing everything because I didn’t like the guitar tones, the tuning, the keyboard parts. Then we came out here and started all over again. Overall this record has taken 11 months to write, demo, make. A lotta time!”

• The working title was Open All Night. The song was released on the box set in 2004.

• The album’s title track, These Days, was referenced by Jon in different ways. In an early interview, he stated: "[...] At one moment I sing 'Jimmy Shoes busted both his legs'. Jimmy Shoes is the nick-name of Jimmy Iovine, the big-boss of Interscope Records, but in my song he's just a little boy. A little boy that breaks both of his little legs. Ha ha!". Later on during concerts he gave speeches about it referring to "Generation X" and trying to make ends meet: “In essence, it’s telling everyone that it’s there to be had but it ain’t easy.”

• Hey God originated from an experience Richie had: “I was riding in a limousine one winter day. We pulled up at a light there was this homeless man on the pavement. We had eye contact. It was a serious moment. I felt very guilty. He was sitting in his cardboard box and I was in the back of a limousine. I thought, what the fuck can this guy be thinking of me? I thought in his head he had to write a letter to God. God, what the fuck happened to me?”

• This Ain’t A Love Song was originally titled This Ain’t A Drinking Song.

• Something To Believe In was the first song written for the album. Jon wrote it after the end of the Keep The Faith tour when he went on vacation in January 1994.

• Lie To Me picked up on two familiar characters: “It’s Tommy and Gina growing up, saying ‘I can’t make ends meet, but don’t walk out on me ‘cos I’m in deep shit. So if you can’t tell me you love me, lie to me!’ This didn’t come from fiction!”

• My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms came together quite similar to Bed of Roses. Once again, Jon couldn’t find the inspiration to write that day, but just like on the former he decided to write about this situation.

• (It’s Hard) Letting You Go was written by Jon as a gift for the producers of the movie Moonlight & Valentino in which he had starred. On the album version, there are only Jon (vocals & piano), Richie (vocals & guitar) and a drum computer to be heard.

• Hearts Breaking Even was written by Jon and Desmond Child on the day Richie had his first date with his to-become wife Heather Locklear. Jon later joked that Richie was pissed that he didn’t have a hand in writing that song.

• According to Jon Something For The Pain was the toughest song to be written and has been rewritten at least ten times. It was first named I've Been Lovin' You Too Long To Turn Back Now and was in the vein of the seventies music by T-Rex. But the record company's A&R manager John Kalodner didn't like that at all and convinced the band to rework the song. Later on it was named Gimme. This version had a slightly different melody in the chorus than the final album track. A live version was played during their 1994 Christmas tour.

• Diamond Ring had originally been written for New Jersey and, in fact, been played during a promo radio show at that time, but ultimately didn't make the record. During the short Japan tour in 1991 it was played live again and then re-worked for Keep The Faith. In fact, the entire Keep The Faith album had originally been built around that cut, but it once again failed to make the album until they recorded it for These Days and finally released it.

• Bitter Wine was originally recorded in an electric version. The arrangement has quite a few similarities to Joe Cocker's version of With A Little Help From My Friends (the intro) and Bad Company's Shooting Star (the verses). The lyrics of the electric version were slightly different than from the acoustic album version. It's likely to assume that it was a last minute decision to include the acoustic version since the booklet holds the lyrics of the electric one.

• It is the first album with Hugh McDonald being the official bass player. During an interview in 1994 Alec John Such complained about Jon's work ethic and that he won't record the album with the band. After that interview he was fired by Jon.

• Other songs from that era are Good Guys Don't Always Wear White, The End, When She Comes, Wedding Day, Prostitute, Lonely At The Top, Letter To A Friend, Gotta Have A Reason, Nobody's Hero, Only In My Dreams, Flesh & Bone, The Fire Inside and I Just Wanna Be Your Man. All of them have been released as B-sides or on the Box Set.

Live

• Except If That's What It Takes, Hearts Breaken Even and Bitter Wine the whole album was played live. Ironically, Jon had specifically mentioned Hearts Breaking Even as a song he looked forward to performing in a promo interview in 1995.

• With All I Want Is Everything even a bonustrack was played live - and it was almost a staple on the 1996 setlist and is the only bonus track that was performed by the band on a tour concert.
  

• Although a lot of songs from the album were played during the 1995 and 1996 tours and the band seemed to be very proud of that album, a lot of the songs disappeared on the setlist on the following tours for decades and none of them has ever been a staple in the setlist again - making this the first album to be handled that way (Bounce would follow 12 years later). Fans around the world always wish for more songs from that album but more than 1 or 2 songs once in a while never get played.

• Hey God was one of the first songs to be played on the 1995 tour, even before the album was released. It stayed in the setlists from summer 1995 onwards and got played a few times on the Crush and One Wild Night tour. After disappearing from the setlists for the Bounce and Have A Nice Day touring cycles, it returned in 2008 and was played at least once per tour until 2013.

• Something For The Pain appeared once during the One Wild Night tour in 2001. It was the day of the release of the Tokyo Road compilation that contains the song and the band played the whole album. Afterwards it took until the The Circle tour in 2010 where the band used to play an acoustic version.

• This Ain't A Lovesong is the first lead single of an album that wasn't played regularly on the belonging tour and was dropped completely afterwards. For most part of the These Days tour in 1996 it was played as an encore or didn't get played at all. After the tour it disappeared completely and it took until the Lost Highway tour in 2008 that it was played once again. During the 2011 Live tour and 2013 Because We Can tour it was played a couple of times as well.

• These Days is the song that was played the most during following tours but even that means that it appeared only about a handful of times each tour. An exception was the Lost Highway tour in 2007/2008 where Richie Sambora sang the lead vocals and the song got played quite regularly. However, while Jon used to finish the song by playing the harmonica in 1995/96, he'd never do it again afterwards - the same already happened with Born To Be My Baby where Jon used to end the song by playing harmonica from 1988 - 1991 as well.

• Lie To Me was the rare song to be played from the album. After the tour it was laid to rest and appeared once during the 2008 Lost Highway tour. In 2011, Jon played a verse and the chorus of it as an introduction to Always at the band’s concert in Udine, Italy.

• Damned and (It's Hard) Hard Letting You Go reappeared as a duo in Fukuoka, Japan on the Crush tour and the former would have a few selected plays on the Crush, Bounce and Lost Highway tour. On the Circle/Live 2011 tour, both songs would return a handful of times again.

• My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms was never played live again after the These Days tour ended. Even back in 1996, it became obvious how much Jon struggled to pull the song off live and they never quite recreated the magical vibe from the album live on that one.

• Something To Believe In, just like My Guitar Lies Bleeding In My Arms, most likely didn’t enter the setlists until 1996 but was a regular there. It returned a couple of times on the One Wild Night, Bounce, and the Circle/Live 2011 tours. In 2003, bar one electric performance in Munich, the song was done in an acoustic setting in a much lower key since Jon struggled quite a lot vocally around that time.

• Diamond Ring, just like Hey God, was already played before the album’s release on tour and, in 1996, used as an introduction to certain songs like Bed of Roses or Damned. It disappeared for the Crush and One Wild Night tour but has had a couple of plays on each tour ever since.