In 1986, Bon Jovi put out an album called Slippery When Wet. That album was the band’s third and featured some of the biggest songs of their career, like “Wanted Dead or Alive,” “You Give Love a Bad Name,” and, of course, the band’s biggest song, “Living on a Prayer.” In music, you have songs that exist in certain keys; those keys determine where the lead singer’s voice sits. The song “Living on a Prayer” was co-written by Jon Bon Jovi, the band’s guitarist Richie Sambora, and super producer Desmond Child. That song is in the key of E until the end, when it switches to the key of G Minor, which is higher. At the end of the song, Jon’s voice has to go to a higher pitch, and on an episode of A Current Affair in Australia, Jon blames that song and that key change for why he needed to undergo vocal cord surgery in 2022.
“You know when they say: How many regrets have you had in your career? I’d never modulated a song at the end before. So I’m wide open to the idea. [We were] 24 when we wrote the damn thing, and you work up the demo, and they go, ‘Let’s try this!’ When you’re that young and dumb, you’re like, ‘I could do this.’”
For what it’s worth, it kind of worked, because that song is triple platinum, it tops many best song lists, hit number one on a few different charts, and in today’s standards has been streamed billions of times. Jon is fine now, as Bon Jovi will be touring again in 2027.
