Deep Tracks: Bon Jovi – Love Ain’t Nothing but a 4-Letter Word/Only in My Dreams

Love Ain’t Nothing but a 4-Letter Word

Here is a song that is a bit different for a band comprised of all males. The song is told from a female perspective – and things are not going well. She has bought into a life that she was supposed to have and now realizes it is not for her. Simply put, she is leaving:

She was waiting alone at the station
Praying for her train to arrive
Thinking about her destination
The tattered bag all she had in her life
She turned her back on her family
She turned her back on her friends
She turned her back on a married man
When she took off that wedding band

Why would someone do this? She has given up her life for so long that she cannot do it any longer. There is something to live for and that is herself. She needs to escape what has been created for her and create the life she wants. As the title suggests, ‘love’ is a bad word and in the context of this song, it is. She has been fooled by love – fooled into giving up her dreams and the place she wanted to go. Now she is going: “Giving up, nothing’s changed but the score / Had enough, every night love turns to war / Give it up, gave it all and wanted more / It ain’t worth dying for.”

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Bonus: Only in My Dreams (Tico Torres lead vocals)

Here is something else, like the accordion in “Miss Fourth of July”, that you did not expect: drummer Tico Torres on lead vocals! Since this is a bonus song and you have five others from the box set, I am not going to say too much about it. The vocals are pretty good and exactly what you would expect Torres to sound like. Sit back and enjoy!

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At first glance some box sets seem to be a way for a band to make a few extra bucks. They are typical an anthology of older songs, a few outtakes ot live version, and a couple of unreleased songs. 100,000,000 Million Fans Can’t Be Wrong is a great box set full of songs that should have been on earlier albums, but decisions have to be made. Sure, there are a few tracks that are not great and could be considered “throw aways”, but the majority of these songs offer more insight to the true talents of the band.

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