Final Song Analysis

Brian Acker
1/29/10
Period B
Final Song Analysis

Bon Jovi-You Give Love a Bad Name


Bon Jovi is one of the legendary artists of Rock and Roll. He has achieved great success in the music business for many reasons. The girls seem to think he’s gorgeous, the guys love his awesome rockin’ music, and it’s quite clear that he was born a star with a name like John Bon Jovi. While one could speculate the most important reasons that Bon Jovi is so famous and successful, at least one fact remains undeniable: John Bon Jovi is a great, talented songwriter. All of his songs are not full of just amazing musical content and great displays of vocal ability, but also clear poetic mastery in his lyrics. Bon Jovi’s "You Give Love a Bad Name" is a great example of this. In the song, you will find numerous poetic devices in the lyrics that help to enhance the meaning and power of the lyrics. In "You Give Love a Bad Name," John tends to use a few certain poetic devices more than others to help describe what seems to be a devil of a woman.

John Bon Jovi’s masterpiece "You Give Love a Bad Name" contains many poetic devices that help enhance the strength of its lyrics, but mainly focuses on the poetic devices of symbolism, metaphor, and characterization. The song is about a girl that John was in a relationship with who actually didn’t care for him much and broke his heart. Every line uses graphic imagery and figurative language to help describe this evil woman’s personality, or to characterize her. All of these descriptions contain many symbols and metaphors that help to give the listener a better idea of this awful person. The first verse exemplifies this well: "An angel’s smile is what you sell/You promise me heaven then put me through hell/Chains of love got a hold on me/When passion’s a prison you can’t break free." This verse alone contains symbolism, alliteration, figurative language, irony, characterization, imagery, personification, and metaphor. That is a large amount of poetic devices to be packed into four short lines. However, the symbolism and metaphors stick out the most in these lines of characterization. The chains of love and passion prison are both symbols for the unshakeable love that he feels for this girl. The metaphor of passion to a prison is also a very strong poetic device because it compares passion and love, which are generally great, appreciated, adored ideas to the negative idea of a prison, which gives the sense of entrapment in a broken love and passion. In addition to the symbols and metaphors, the line "You promise me heaven then put me through hell" is a great example of a line of characterization that describes how this girl tends to break promises of love and happiness and turn her poor boyfriends’ lives into those of sadness and misery.

The second verse also does a good job of characterizing Bon Jovi’s "she-devil" using many poetic devices: "You paint your smile on your lips/blood red nails on your fingertips/A school boy’s dream, you act so shy/Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye." This verse mainly characterizes the girl to be a liar and an actress who doesn’t actually care about anyone but herself and throws her guys away right after she gets them. Again, this verse contains symbols and metaphors among other poetic devices to help with this characterization. For example, a school boy’s dream is a metaphor to describe the girl’s beauty, while blood red nails are a symbol that represents the girls malicious actions and intentions.

After the verses of the song do a great job of characterizing Bon Jovi’s evil lady friend, the chorus perfectly describes how he feels as a result of her poor treatment of him: "Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame/you give love a bad name/I play my part and you play your game/you give love a bad name." This sums up the ways of the girl with the line "I play my part and you play your game/you give love a bad name." Comparing the whole relationship to a game is a perfect metaphor that enhances the idea of acting and carelessness. However, the hyperbole "shot through the heart and your to blame" is the most powerful line in the chorus, and possibly the whole song. Not only is this a fancy way of describing a broken heart, but it gives the listener an idea of the pain that John feels after the heartbreak. A shot through the heart would be incredibly painful, and with the girl to blame proves that she is tearing him apart. This very descriptive chorus is a great piece of writing that uses poetic devices to create an amazing atmosphere.

"You Give Love a Bad Name" is a great song all around. It has great music in it, Bon Jovi’s unbelievable vocals, and fantastic lyrics. Unlike most songs though, these great lyrics are not overlooked. When listeners hear these lyrics, they immediately focus on them, and their poetic content complete’s the musical atmosphere. It is amazing that an artist could fit so many poetic devices into such few lines of such a short song, but Bon Jovi proved that it’s possible with this song. Despite only a few quatrains to express himself, John Bon Jovi created an absolutely amazing song in "You Give Love a Bad Name" with many powerful poetic devices.