Songoftheday 4/5/16 - I ain't got a fever got a permanent disease, and it'll take more than a doctor to prescribe a remedy...

"Bad Medicine" - Bon Jovi
from the album New Jersey (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's song of the day comes from the hard rock band Bon Jovi, whose third album Slippery When Wet had catapulted them into the high pantheon of "hair-metal" acts that dominated the charts in the 80s, scoring back to back #1 hits with "You Give Love A Bad Name" and "Livin' On A Prayer". They even were able to put two non-single tracks into the pop airplay top 40, including their contribution to the Disorderlies soundtrack, "Edge Of A Broken Heart", in the fall of 1987. That song attempted to fill in at least part of the gap of over two years before the release of their next record, named after their home state of New Jersey. The first single from the set was the punchy "Bad Medicine", written by lead singer/band namesake Jon Bon Jovi along with guitarist Richie Sambora and "song doctor" Desmond Child. With its anthemic singalong chorus about a love that certainly is no good, they put themselves back in with their fanbase, who were used to help film their music video. With comically huge film cameras on the backs of a dozens of groupie girls, and a cameo by screaming funnyman Sam Kinison, the basic performance video was turned into a welcome back to their fans...

"Bad Medicine" became Bon Jovi's third #1 pop hit in America in November of 1988. The song also climbed to #3 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart for a week. Internationally, the single made the top ten in New Zealand (#2), Australia (#4), Canada (#5), Finland (#7), Ireland (#10), and the Netherlands (#10). In Britain, the track peaked at #17, while it was a minor hit in both Germany (#54) and France (#98).

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There was a second video edited from the shots from this fan-filmed show....

Here's the band performing the song live in Japan in 1988...

...and lastly, from a Letterman appearance in 2010 where they "mash-up" the song with the 60s classic "Shout"...

Up tomorrow: Big-walking duo trades in for romance.