It's My Life (Bon Jovi song)
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| “It's My Life” | |||||
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| Single by Bon Jovi from the album Crush |
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| Released | May 23, 2000 | ||||
| Format | CD single | ||||
| Recorded | c. 2000 | ||||
| Genre | Hard rock | ||||
| Length | 3:45 | ||||
| Label | Island | ||||
| Writer(s) | Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Max Martin | ||||
| Producer | Max Martin | ||||
| Bon Jovi singles chronology | |||||
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"It's My Life" is Bon Jovi's first single from the album Crush. It was released on May 23, 2000. It was written by Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Jay Orpin and Max Martin. It hit #33 on the Billboard charts and was the band's first Top 40 hit in the US since 1994.
"It's My Life" became one of the most successful Bon Jovi singles, hitting #1 across many countries and most importantly, becoming a symbol of band's longevity as they prevailed through many different changes in the mainstream rock scene with admirable success. It was credited with reviving their career after they came off a five year break, during which they each pursued individual solo careers. It was also credited with introducing the veteran band to an entirely new, younger audience.
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[edit] Awards
Won:
- "Video Of The Year" at the VH-1 My Music Awards"
- Song has been chosen as one of the greatest song of the year at the "ASCAP Pop Music Awards"
Nominated:
- "Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" at the Grammy Awards
- "Best Rock Song" at the Grammy Awards
[edit] Charts
| Chart | Peak position |
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| Austria Singles Chart [1] | 1 (4 weeks) |
| Italian Singles Chart [2] | 1 |
[edit] "I did it 'My Way'"
"It's My Life" is notable for its bombastic line referencing Frank Sinatra himself: "My heart is like an open highway / Like Frankie said / I did it 'My Way'". Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora apparently had an argument over those lines:
- "I had just come home from making U-571 and I said 'Sinatra made 16 movies and toured 'til he was 80. This is my role model.' He said, 'You can't write that damn lyric. Nobody cares about Frank Sinatra but you.' And I wrote it anyway." — Jon Bon Jovi [1]
The song "My Way" performed by Frank Sinatra was written by singer/songwriter Paul Anka. Anka covers "It's My Life" on his 2005 album Rock Swings. In the cover version, Anka made one subtle but important change in the lyrics: "Frank said, He did it my way." In other words, "Frank did it Paul's way."
The line became, for many, an anthem of self-reliance.
- "When I was writing 'It's My Life,' I thought I was writing very self-indulgently about my own life and where I was in it. I didn't realize that the phrase 'It's my life' would be taken as being about everyone--by teenagers, by older guys, mechanics, whatever. 'It's my life, and I'm taking control.' Everyone kind of feels that way from time to time." [2]
The song has many classic Bon Jovi features, such as Sambora's use of the talk box, and a line in the second verse "Like Tommy and Gina, who never backed down" refers to Tommy and Gina, a fictional working class couple that Bon Jovi and Sambora first wrote about in the 1986 classic "Livin' on a Prayer," a song that also used a talk box.
[edit] Music video
Wayne Isham directed this music video. Will Estes as Tommy and Shiri Appleby as Gina are the two main characters. At the beginning, Tommy is watching a video of the concert on his computer. Gina calls and during the whole video, Tommy is running to the Bon Jovi concert to meet up with her. We see him running through the streets of Los Angeles trying to get there. He is getting chased by dogs, running a marathon, and posing for pictures and jackknifing a truck. The video was inspired by the movie Run Lola Run.[3] Jon Bon Jovi met Will Estes on the set of U-571 and chose him to play be in his next video, "It's My Life.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ "Streets of Philadelphia" Austrian singles chart history.
- ^ Hit parade Italia Hit parade Italia.
- ^ Alex Gernandt: Bon Jovi, 2. edition, Goldmann, München 2001, ISBN 3442428513, p 261
