AMASS – Bon Jovi is one of rock music’s most successful bands. During its long career, the band has sold more than 130 million records and performed over 3,000 sold-out concerts. As a result, the musicians in Bon Jovi have AMASSED or accumulated many professional awards and great financial success. For example, the band’s front man Jon Bon Jovi has an estimated net worth of $450 million.
Bon Jovi released the studio album “Slippery When Wet” in 1986. The album’s hit songs warn listeners that the road to love is filled with dangers. Let’s take a look at “You Give Love a Bad Name” and learn one of romance’s most painful lessons.
EGREGIOUS – The song’s iconic opening line bluntly establishes that someone has committed an EGREGIOUS or extraordinarily bad romantic crime. Bon Jovi has been “shot through the heart.” What’s more, the group knows exactly who is to blame!
BELIE – The guys in Bon Jovi describe their former lover as having an “angel’s smile.” But this BELIES or misrepresents the truth. She is really an angel in disguise who promised Bon Jovi “heaven and instead put him “through hell.”
FORESTALL – Is there anything Bon Jovi could have done to FORESTALL or prevent being “shot through the heart?” Unfortunately, the answer is NO! The guys admit that “chains of love got a hold on me.” They warn their listeners that devastating heartbreak is inevitable when passion becomes a prison and “you can’t break free.”
ATTRIBUTE – Bon Jovi ATTRIBUTED or assigned the girl’s punishing rejection to a plan of calculated deception. She manipulated Bon Jovi by pretending to be “so shy” and posing as “a schoolboy’s dream.” But in reality, she was a “loaded gun” whose “first kiss was your first kiss goodbye.”
SALVAGE – Is there anything Bon Jovi can do to SALVAGE or recover from his crushing disappointment and overwhelming emotional pain? In the end, Bon Jovi concedes the bitter truth that “there’s nowhere to run.” Nothing can repair his broken heart – “No one can save me; the damage is done.”
EGREGIOUS – outstandingly bad; flagrant
BELIE – to misrepresent; give a false impression
FORESTALL – prevent from happening
ATTRIBUTE – assign the cause, origin, or responsibility
SALVAGE – the act of rescuing or recovering