• Writers: Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Desmond Child
• Producer: Bruce Fairbairn
• Recorded: Spring 1986 at Little Mountain Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia
• Released: Fall 1986
• Players:
  Jon Bon Jovi — vocals, guitar
  Richie Sambora — guitar, vocals
  Alec John Such — bass, vocals
  David Bryan — keyboards
  Tico Torres — drums
• Album: Slippery When Wet (Mercury, 1986)
• Also On:
  Crossroad (Mercury, 1994)
  One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001 (Mercury, 2001)
• The second single from Bon Jovi‘s third album, “Livin’ On A Prayer” became the group’s second consecutive Number One hit.
• It was a hit two months earlier in the U.K., where it reached Number Four on the singles chart.
• The Slippery When Wet album was similarly successful, spending a total of 15 weeks at Number One on the Billboard 200 and reaching Number Six in the U.K.
• Considering its success, it’s ironic to note that the song — which was one of 35 considered for the Slippery When Wet album — almost didn’t make it onto the record. Producer Bruce Fairbairn said, “Jon (Bon Jovi) wasn’t that excited about it.” Bon Jovi himself said, “When we wrote ‘Livin’ On A Prayer,’ I said to (lead guitarist) Richie (Sambora), ‘Maybe we can get this on a soundtrack or something,’ because I never thought it was right for the band.”
• Fairbairn convinced Bon Jovi to go with the song, citing its optimistic lyric about two young lovers seeking a better life. “I really heard the lyric in that song as being something that spoke to a lot of people,” Fairbairn said. “So I liked it for that, and I fought for the song. At some point it looked like it might not make the record. I convinced Jon and Richie that it was worth hanging in there, and sure enough, it started to develop… We worked on the harmonies and the chorus, and everything we did to it made the song better.”
• Among those enhancement was Sambora’s use of a talk box effect, which mixed his voice and guitar into one signal. “We were digging around in Richie’s guitar effects box,” Fairbairn remembered. “I grabbed hold of this old tube and up comes this talk box, and I thought, ‘Stick this in, I haven’t heard one of these since the (Peter) Frampton album.’” Fairbairn was referring to Frampton Comes Alive, which featured talk box on hits such as “Show Me The Way” and “Do You Feel Like We Do.”

FAST FORWARD:

• The band parted company with bassist Alec John Such in 1994.
• All of the members of Bon Jovi have carved out careers outside the band, including solo albums and, in Jon Bon Jovi’s case, acting in films such as Moonlight And Valentino and U-571.
• Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora have an ownership position with the Philadelphia Soul, a team in the Arena Football League.
• In 2006 the group earned a country Number One hit with “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” with singer Jennifer Nettles from the country group Sugarland.

The band’s most recent album, Lost Highway, landed at the top of the charts, with over 291,000 units sold in its first week. It includes a duet with country star LeAnn Rimes, “Til We Ain’t Strangers Anymore.”