Livin' on a Prayer (Bon Jovi) cover

"Livin' on a Prayer" is a song by the American rock band Bon Jovi from their third studio album, Slippery When Wet. Written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child, the single, released in late 1986, performed strongly on both rock and pop radio and its music video was given heavy rotation at MTV, giving the band their first song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart and their second consecutive No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit. Regarded as Bon Jovi's signature song, "Livin' on a Prayer" has topped fan-voted lists and re-charted around the world decades after its release. In 2013, the song was certified triple platinum for over 3 million digital downloads and has since sold over 13 million worldwide, making it one of the best selling singles of all time. Bon Jovi released an alternative version, "Prayer 94", on the 1994 greatest-hits album Cross Road. Bon Jovi recorded an alternative version, "Prayer 94", for the 1994 greatest-hits album Cross Road. Rolling Stone named it one of "seven pop music remakes that never should have happened", criticizing its alteration of the song's "greatest strength", its chorus melody, and speculating that it was "a play for respectability" after the rise of grunge. After the September 11, 2001 attacks – in which New Jersey was the second-hardest hit state after New York, suffering hundreds of casualties among both WTC workers and first responders – the band performed an acoustic version of this song for New York. Bon Jovi performed a similar version as part of the special America: A Tribute to Heroes. The song describes two characters, Tommy and Gina, a working-class couple who struggle to make ends meet. Tommy loses his job as a dockworker due to a strike while Gina works as a diner waitress. Its storyline was loosely based on real-life events that Richie Sambora, Jon Bon Jovi and songwriter Desmond Child witnessed and experienced in the 1970s. The 1977 Dockworkers' Strike was the inspiration for Tommy's plight, in which the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) engaged in a seven-week work stoppage. In another case, before becoming successful artists and songwriters, Desmond Child and his then-girlfriend, singer-songwriter Maria Vidal, lived together and had already begun their music careers, while still working day jobs; Child was a taxi driver in New York while Vidal was employed as a waitress in a diner named "Once Upon A Stove", similar to Gina in the song. The owner, manager, and other employees of the diner nicknamed Vidal "Gina" due to her slight physical resemblance to Italian actress and photographer Gina Lollobrigida. "It deals with the way that two kids – Tommy and Gina – face life's struggles," noted Bon Jovi, "and how their love and ambitions get them through the hard times. It's working class and it's real… I wanted to incorporate the movie element, and tell a story about people I knew. So instead of doing what I did on 'Runaway', where the girl didn't have a name, I gave them names, which gave them an identity... Tommy and Gina aren't two specific people; they represent a lifestyle." Tommy and Gina are also referred to in Bon Jovi's 1988 song "99 in the Shade" and their 2000 single "It's My Life". In a 2002 interview, Bon Jovi said that he wrote the song as a response to the Reagan Era, adding, "trickle-down economics are really inspirational to writing songs". #bonjovi #bonjovicover #livinonaprayer