THE YEAR IS… 1986!
- Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora wrote this with Desmond Child, a prolific songwriter who was brought in by the record company to give them a more commercial sound like he did for Kiss on ‘I was Made For Loving You”.
- The characters Tommy and Gina were based on a real life situation Desmond encountered in the late ’70s with his then-girlfriend, Maria Vidal, whom he was living with. According to the notes in his Desmond Child & Rouge: Runners In The Night album, Desmond was a New York taxi cab driver and Maria was a singing waitress in a diner.
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At first, Jon Bon Jovi wanted to leave this off the Slippery When Wet album, thinking it wasn’t good enough. According to Jon, a meeting with a group of teenagers changed his mind and it was added to the album.
- The album was going to be called “Wanted Dead Or Alive” (another song on the album) and show the band on the cover dressed as cowboys. After doing the photo shoot with photographer Mark Weiss, the band decided they were taking it too seriously, changed the title to “Slippery When Wet,”
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Jon Bon Jovi told The London Times in May 2010 that he never gets tired of singing this song: “Not when I see the jet with my name on it.”
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