‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ Wasn’t Meant for Bon Jovi Even Though They Wrote It

Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” remains one of the most beloved classic rock songs of the 1980s. Bon Jovi’s co-writer said he wrote it in a place that reminded him of an infamous scene from a horror film. Fascinatingly, the lyrics of an earlier Bon Jovi song partially inspired “You Give Love a Bad Name.”

Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ has a connection to Kiss

Desmond Child is a professional songwriter who became famous for working with classic rock acts like Alice Cooper (“Poison”), Aerosmith (“Dude Looks Like a Lady”), and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts (“I Hate Myself for Lovin’ You”), as well as pop singers such as Katy Perry (“Waking Up in Vegas”), Ricky Martin (“Livin’ la Vida Loca”), and Ava Max (“Kings & Queens”). One of his most famous songs is Kiss’ disco/hard rock smash “I Was Made for Lovin’ You.” A 2019 article from The Tennessean reports that after Bon Jovi opened for Kiss, Child started working with Bon Jovi’s frontman.

“One of the things that I heard Jon say in an interview was that he had no intention of writing a song with me for Bon Jovi,” Child recalled. “The idea was that because I’d had a hit with Kiss, that maybe we could write a hit for someone else. But then the songs started coming out so good, he kept them for himself.”

Desmond Child said a Bon Jovi member had a horror movie basement

Child started working with Bon Jovi’s Richie Sambora. They started writing in Sambora’s basement. Child compared the rock star’s basement to the basement lair of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.

“There’s this Formica table and a little electronic keyboard, kind of teetering, a space heater buzzing and some amps buzzing,” Child said. “He finally comes down, and I had brought a title in my back pocket, ‘You Give Love a Bad Name,’ because I love titles that have irony. So that’s what sparks the interest, and he had had a song called ‘Shot Through the Heart’ on his previous album, and that song sparked him to say ‘Shot through the heart and you’re to blame,’ and then the three of us said, ‘You give love a bad name.'”

‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ was 1 of 3 hits from the same album

“You Give Love a Bad Name” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week, spending 24 weeks on the chart in total. It remains more popular than a lot of songs that were No. 1 for weeks on end! The tune appeared on Bon Jovi’s defining album: Slippery When Wet. That record topped the Billboard 200 for eight weeks, remaining on the Billboard 200 for 118 weeks altogether.

Slippery When Wet produced two other hit singles: “Livin’ on a Prayer” (which Child also co-wrote) and “Wanted Dead or Alive.” All three of these singles remain classic rock radio staples. While it’s a Bon Jovi song, “Wanted Dead or Alive” sounds like the best Guns N’ Roses song that Guns N’ Roses never wrote.

“You Give Love a Bad Name” is one of Bon Jovi’s best songs even if Child wasn’t supposed to write songs for Bon Jovi.