ellyssian | Pieces of Me: You Give Love a Bad Name

Shot through the heart
and you're to blame,
You give love a bad name

Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name

Ryan was a cool guy. He looked an awful lot like a young K.K. Downing from Judas Priest - which was even better because I looked a lot like Glen Tipton, and my little brother had the Ian Hill thing down. Of course, it helped that Ryan and I played guitar, Dan played bass, and we didn't have a drummer (which paralleled the many drummers Priest went through, in some way.) Together with another friend, Rob, who, of course, we tried to get to *not* pick up his guitar and make him our vocalist, we were Talisman. Although in a dream one night, to a sold-out standing-room-only crowd, we performed as Judas Rabbi. Of course, in the dream Rob had shaved off his Steve Perryesque black hair to match the late eighties pate of Rob Halford.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with Bon Jovi, except the aforequoted song became a catchphrase that I remember using, primarily, as we were walking from the parking lot to Friendly's, which we frequented much more than the food itself deserved. Ryan really liked one of the waitresses there, and wound up dating her for a while. He would get all misty eyed when Boston's Amanda would come on the radio - and I really can't remember if we ever had the heart to tell him that Amanda was not the long form of his love interests name, despite that was what he claimed. In any event, the song took more meaning with the breakup, at least for Ryan, and we were at least somewhat sympathetic, as a handful of us immortalized it in our high school yearbooks as "STTHAYTBYGLABN" which had the added - and more important - aeffect of confusing the hell out of everyone who read it.

That particular Friendly's, by the way, featured highly in several other stories which may wind up here someday - from flaming Zippo dabbed arms to eternal urination - and Ryan was present for all those stories, and many others as well, but those will have to wait.

I'll end with something completely different, however, and perhaps even more apt than Jon Bon Blo-mi's lyrics... a few readers may know that my wife often considers Bon Jovi to be her husband (and even has a literally-cut-and-pasted photo to prove it - it also helps that his wife's name is also Deb and the small print supports the photo hacking), and she used to play the old stuff endlessly (now she plays his newer stuff endlessly, alternating with Dimeback and Puddle o' Dirtt.)

Although I attempted to broaden a young just-talking Justin's musical horizons (and was, eventually, successful!), he heard an awful lot of STTHAYTBYGLABN, and offered up this much, much, much improved lyric:

Shot through the heart
and you're too lame,
You give love a band aid

Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name, the toddler translation