On my Summer vacation back in June, I found over 20 singles with the picture sleeve. I’ve been through a bunch of them so far and now we are tackling the Bon Jovi singles that I found. There were 5 Singles found and we kicked it off with the following:

• “Wanted Dead or Alive” off 1986’s ‘Slippery When Wet’
• “Bad Medicine” off 1988’s ‘New Jersey’

Now it is time for another ‘New Jersey’ single with “Born to be My Baby”. This was the second single off the album and did pretty dang great going all the way to #3 on the Billboard Top 100 and it was one of 5 Top 10 Singles off this album…crazy!!! It was another track written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and of course, Desmond Child. There is no denying his impact with the band.

As you can see from above that the B-Side is “Love For Sale” also from the same album. However, that is WRONG!!! Ok, not really, that is truly the B-Side, but my copy is not normal. It is actually a promo that was sent out using the regular single cover. So, my copy has “Born to Be My Baby” on both sides. It even says on the single label, “Promotional Copy – Not For Sale” which I think is cool. Like some older promos that I have which has one side Stereo and one side Mono, this one is all Stereo and the same song on each side, no differences.

• 

• 

The theme on the song is very familiar to you as Bon Jovi have used it before on “Living on a Prayer”. It is about a couple that is struggling to make ends meet, but they still know they were made to be with each other and that God has a plan. Back then, the band had a way of crafting these type of songs in to a great story that would draw you in and you’d root for the couple to work it out. I’ve heard this was a sequel to the song and if so, then the song is from Tommy’s point of view as opposed to coming from a third person like the previous song, this one is him looking out.

A keyboard heavy track and a bunch of na-na-na’s in the opening. It is an upbeat rocker that was really written as an acoustic track but Bruce Fairbairn talked them in to making it more of a rocker. It did go to #3, but Jon thinks it would’ve gone to #1 as an acoustic song. He might not be wrong. It does have a great Richie Sambora solo as he did so many great ones during this time. Jon sings with so much emotion and you could really feel the lyrics as a result. The song is classic sounding Bon Jovi and these guys were bigger than life at this point. They could do no wrong and this was a shining example of that thought.

And there you have the next single in the series. We still have 2 more to go so we will see you next week with another ‘New Jersey’ single!!