Songoftheday 7/8/16 - I guess this time you're really leaving I heard your suitcase say goodbye, well as my broken heart lies bleeding you say true love is suicide...

"I'll Be There For You" - Bon Jovi
from the album New Jersey (1988)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 13

Today's song of the day comes from the pop/"hair-metal" band Bon Jovi, who had landed their third #1 pop hit in the fall of 1988 with the first single from their New Jersey album, "Bad Medicine", and followed that up with the top-3 "Born To Be My Baby". The third single from the set was the "power-ballad" from the record, "I'll Be There For You". Written by Jon Bon Jovi with his "Keith Richards" Richie Sambora, the prom-time love song came out timed seemingly for that spring of 1989. And in line with the other songs from New Jersey plagiarizing their iconic Slippery When Wet work, the beginning guitar line more than recall their "Wanted Dead Or Alive"...

"I'll Be There For You" became the band's fourth #1 pop hit in the U.S. in May of 1989 (it would be their last to top the chart so far). The song also climbed to #5 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock radio chart. Internationally, the record went top ten in Canada (#2) and Ireland (#6), and reached the top-40 in Australia (#23), the UK (#18), New Zealand (#16), and Switzerland (#15). It would also get a nomination for an American Music Award.

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Here's the band performing the song live in concert in 1990...

...and again at a tour date in 2013...

Up tomorrow: Another pop-metal giant goes straight for the moon.