Bon Jovi Tours

Have A Nice Day

Released on September 20, 2005

Sanctuary II, New Jersey

Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood

 

Tracklist:

01. Have A Nice Day - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks - 3:48

02. I Want To Be Loved - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks - 3:49

03. Welcome To Wherever You Are - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks - 3:47

04. Who Says You Can't Go Home - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora - 4:40

05. Last Man Standing - Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Falcon - 4:37

06. Bells Of Freedom - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Desmond Child - 4:55

07. Wildflower - Jon Bon Jovi - 4:13

08. Last Cigarette - Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan - 3:38

09. I Am - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks - 3:53

10. Complicated - Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Falcon, Max Martin - 3:37

11. Novocaine - Jon Bon Jovi - 4:49

12. Story Of My Life - Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Falcon - 4:08

 

Bonus tracks:

13. Dirty Little Secret - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, John Shanks, Desmond Child - 3:37

14. Unbreakable - Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, David Bryan - 3:52

Personnel

Jon Bon Jovi - lead vocals, guitar

Richie Sambora - lead guitar, backing vocals

Hugh McDonald – bass, backing vocals

Tico Torres - drums, percussion

David Bryan - keyboards, backing vocals

 

Engineers
Obie O'Brien
Mike Rew
Jeff Rothschild

Chris Lord-Alge

Smitar Krnjaic

Keith Armstrong

Christian Mock

Producer

John Shanks

Jon Bon Jovi
Richie Sambora

Rick Parashar

Chartpositions

 

 Chartname                                                       Peak position                                    Weeks in chart

 

Singles

 

The Videos

 

• The video for Have A Nice Day nowadays can be regarded as the last iconic one of the band. The smirk, which became the album’s cover art, gets drawn by Jon onto a fan’s CD. The photo of this then goes viral and the whole city gets plastered with the red smirks with the band appearing in various places in between and being amused about it. Some performance shots are added near the end as well and the video closes with Jon and Richie looking out of a helicopter and seeing a giant smirk on a field.

 

• Welcome To Wherever You Are shows the band performing at various places in the streets of New York with people of all ethnics rushing by and some scenes of people doing good things being added in between. However, it rather felt like they wanted to force the “sense of inclusion” slogan in there than it being authentic.

 

• Three videos were produced for Who Says You Can’t Go Home. Jon said about that, instead of spending all the money on expensive locations, they decided to build a house with it, film in there and then pass it on the people in need. So two videos show the band being in the house and doing minor things like painting, putting up mirrors (and failing) and playing in the living room in a happy spirit – once just the band, once with Jennifer Nettles being present as well. A third video appeared around the time of the single’s release and was distributed on the German single as well. It showed a fan in a dog costume making his way around the country, entering the stage at a Bon Jovi concert, being thrown out and continuing to stroll around. The video wasn’t picked up by the band’s official Youtube channel anymore and is almost forgotten these days.

 

 

Trivia

 

• Contrary to some (especially earlier) albums, there wasn’t too much coverage or info given about the songwriting process. Whereas Crush and Bounce had been covered by studio footage shown on BJ TV, this time around there wasn’t something similar and there wasn’t an in-detail track-by-track interview either

 

• This is the first album to be produced by John Shanks. Up until now he produced every following Bon Jovi album.

 

• Shank also co-wrote 4 songs on that album. This is the first time that their producer also had a hand in the songwriting.

 

• With this album Jon and Richie changed their "mode of operation". While with all the former albums they wrote the songs and recorded various demos throughout the different album stages (which is well documented for Slippery When Wet or New jersey: acoustic basement demo with just Jon and Richie, band demo with the band from rehearsals, studio demo(s) and finally the album version). With the start of Have A Nice Day they immediately recorded the just written tracks using a drum machine. The rest of the band just played their parts later on in the studio and that's it. So the band didn't work out the songs the way they used to (remember Something For The Pain was told to being rewritten at least ten times). This led to fans getting the feeling that the potential of a lot of those songs wasn't made full use of. Furthermore almost no outtakes appeared anymore since the band recorded only the tracks they were convinced of to put on the album.

 

• The album was planned to be released in early 2005. The official story says that Jon wanted to write some more songs which got recorded in early 2005 and reworked some of the others and thus the release was delayed until autumn. An inofficial theory says that the record  company wasn't satisfied with the material and sent the band back to the studio. This was the tracklist of the "original" album:

                     01. Have A Nice Day

                     02. Welcome To Wherever You Are
                     03. I Want To Be Loved
                     04. Complicated
                     05. Bells Of Freedom
                     06. Who Says You Can’t Go Home
                     07. Nothing
                     08. These Open Arms
                     09. Last Man Standing
                     10. Unbreakable
                     11. I Am
                     12. Who Says You Can’t Go Home (duet with Keith Urban)

 

• In contrast to their previous albums the lyrics of Have A  Nice Day are more social conscious and even political.

 

• About the album’s material, Jon stated: “I always show the same attitude in my work: I wanna be loved. Much like any other artist, I’m neurotic and insecure. You can never be sure with what you do, you just gotta do it. I always used to tell everyone that all is fine. Not now. Now I’m saying if I’m bored, pissed or unhappy with something.” In a German interview he added that it was the first album where “he laid his soul bare” and essentially wrote about things bothering him.

 

• The titel track is Jon's response to the presidential election from 2004 in which democrat John Kerry, who Jon supported throughout the election campaign, lost against George W. Bush. The title has to be understood in a sarcastic Jersey-kind-of-style. Jon: " You can take it literally, or the way it's taken here, 'have a nice day' - end of conversation. That's really the point of the song. In order to not seem on a moral high ground, the best way to say is you have a difference of opinion is to end the conversation. We all can live in the world together. Tolerance: Christians, Muslims, Jews, Mets fans, Yankee fans, everybody should get along. It doesn't mean I have to argue with you, and it doesn't mean I have to have the moral high ground. It's just, have a nice day."

 

• This was backed up by Richie saying that it had a very Clint Eastwood-style meaning to it.

 

• Welcome To Wherever You Are was the song Jon referred to when talking about the record having a “sense of inclusion” and people in America needing “to blur the lines between red and blue and getting back to being countrymen again”. Later on, he admitted to having hoped it’d become the hit of the album and being disappointed in it essentially tanking.

 

• Last Man Standing was written in an acoustic style for This Left Feels Right and got reworked into a heavy rock song. It's about Jon's disappointment about the state of the recording industry which wouldn't allow the rise of a new Bob Dylan since all that matters is a quick success.

 

• Last Cigarette and Novocaine are about David Bryan's divorce. Since Last Cigarette turned out to be too happy Jon wrote Novocaine about the same theme.

 

• Bells Of Freedom is a variation of Dylan's Chimes Of Freedom.

 

• Who Says You Can’t Go Home was originally not regarded by Jon and Richie as being something with hit potential. It got recorded and released in 2 versions: The "normal" band version and country version as a duet. The first duet was Keith Urban, but his and Jon’s voices were regarded as being too similar, so they began looking for a female counterpart and ended up with Jennifer Nettles from the then-rising country band Sugarland. Not only would the band go on to do a CMT Crossroads special together with Sugarland, Who Says You Can’t Go Home also went to number one of the country charts, making it the first hit single of a rock band in that sector. Furthermore  it won Bon Jovi their first and only Grammy (best country collaboration). This success most probably made the band recording their country-influenced album Lost Highway as a follow up.

 

• Wildflower was the first song to be rumoured that Bobby Bandiera actually played on it instead of Richie.

 

• Not much further information was given about the other songs and it can be seen as Jon dealing with different mind-settings around this period and just going on to write them – leading to songs like I Am, Complicated and Story Of My Life.

 

• Other songs from that era were: Nothing, These Open Arms, Saturday Night Gave Me Sunday Morning

 

• Nothing is one of those songs, the fan base always hoped for a proper studio recording to be released. Well, a studio recording leaked but with some annoying noise in the mix. It can be heard here. When asked about Nothing by a fan in 2006, Jon told him that he doesn't really like the song, There were too many songs like that on Have A Nice Day already and that he couldn't go on stage and sing a song like that - he wouldn't feel it so it was ultimately not used.

 

Live

 

• Before the tour started, the band allegedly had promised to play all the songs – and they would live up to their promise.
  

 

• The title track and Who Says You Can't Go Home are the only songs from the album that remained setlist staples afterwards.

 

• Last Man Standing was the opener for most of the shows on the Have A Nice Day Tour - in US arenas Jon would often appear on a platform in the middle of the audience for it before making his way back to the stage and in Europe he’d come running out on the catwalk and start the show there. After the tour had ended, the song would return on each following tour as well, but it fell back into the rarity status quite fast.

 

• Story Of My Life was a setlist staple during the 2005/2006 run. While it got played a couple of times (16)  during the Lost Highway tour as well afterwards it reappeared only once in 2010.

 

• Complicated also got played a couple of times (11) during the Lost Highway Tour but disappeared afterwards.

 

• Bells Of Freedom got played at 25 % of the Have A Nice Day Tour shows and reappeared as a raritiy on the Lost Highway and 2011 Live tours.

 

• Novocaine got played quite regularly on the Have A Nice Day tour but never made its way onto a setlist afterwards. During a soundcheck in 2008 Jon asked the band about the song ("Is it too much to ask for Novocaine?") but they didn't followed that one anymore.

 

• I Want To Be Loved was a track that was more rare from the beginning, but it was to suffer the same fate after the summer of 2006.

 

• Although Welcome To Wherever You Are being a single it only got played at 36 % of the tour shows. In appeared once more during the Lost Highway tour.

 

• Up until two shows before the tour’s end, Wildflower and I Am had not been played, even though the latter had been a frequently requested fan favourite since the album’s release. On the last two concerts, the band went on to perform Wildflower and, on the final night, also added I Am to the setlist. It’s almost needless to say that both were put to rest and never revived again afterwards.