'Cover' your Ears! The 10 Worst Bon Jovi Cover Versions of All Time

Bon Jovi's baffling popularity has continued unabated for two decades now, as this weekend's Central Park concert shows, however in our minds, there is nobody more deserving of both a solid punt to the arse, or a safe dropped on them from a sufficient height, than these crap-rock poster boys, whose music is so middle of the road, their tour bus should have its own dedicated lane.

If only we could lace 'em up and kick 'em when they're down, but they're never down, churning out the same Springsteen-lite cacophony year after year.

To honor the band, and also in the spirit of celebrating the worst of everything, we've decided to put together a tribute, of sorts, to Bon Jovi, the world’s most famous Bruce Springsteen tribute band/wimp rock quartet.

Unlike some bands, the core group has remained relatively intact. This has enabled the Jersey boys with Swiss watch- like reliability, to consistently put out unspeakably awful music year after year.

The sole exception of course, the booting bass player Alec John Such (the 'soul' of the group in that he sported soul patch facial hair), because he ‘couldn’t play his instrument’—a requirement obviously forgotten as few of the remaining members actually know how to play theirs (with the exception being David Bryan, the band’s keyboard player, who actually trained at the Juilliard School of Music, and judging by his current gig tickling the ivories with the Jersey dunder-heads, is about as overqualified as the 'Ice Man' Chuck Liddell doing security detail at a Girl Scouts Jamboree)



Their intrepid leader Jon Bon Jovi, of course, is Bruce Springsteen— if Bruce had a tin ear, Meg Ryan’s hairstylist, and penned gems like ‘Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake, Luck ain't even lucky’ instead of great songs like Born to Run, Highway Patrolman or Thunder Road.

It is not hyperbole to say that BJ represents everything wrong with modern music, or at least, modern horticultural hair band music that became more bankrupt, creatively speaking, than Bear Stearns, and peaked around oh, 1987, unbeknownst to the band.

Bon Jovi is a church-basement rummage sale clearing house version of The Boss. Their ‘rock-lite’ is more sanitized than a trauma burn unit and their Forest Gump libretti induces more projectile vomiting than the elimination round at a chili eating contest. If this wasn't enough, and from our vantage point here it certainly is, their news anchor bobs will guarantee they’re a shoe-in for the next installment of ‘Old Men who Look Like Lesbians’.

The only thing worse than an actual Bon Jovi song, however, is Bon Jovi doing a version of someone else’s, automatically better original. Worse still, would be someone actually COVERING a Bon Jovi song, but to the best of our knowledge, the likelihood of this occurring is about as probable as a meteor the size of the state of New Jersey striking the earth.

Since their own music wasn’t bad enough, here is Bon Jovi doing what they do best—spilling their own REO Speedwagon / Journey / Three Dog Night / Springsteen-lite effluent on some of the world’s most well-beloved songs. Luckily for all concerned, these are so popular that nobody would mistake them for Bon Jovi originals and mislead any future generations. Here, in no particular order, because the pork rendering plant stench emanating from each, is indistinguishable from the other, is our 10 Worst Bon Jovi Covers of All Time:

10. Save the Last Dance for Me, Pomus and Shuman. Among the 'better' song on this list, only in the sense that it's better to have testicular cancer than say, lung. The presence of Willy Deville's voice means fewer verses for JBJ


9. You Were Always on My Mind Willie Nelson. Since his battle with the IRS, legendary Willie Nelson seems contractually obligated to work with just about anyone, and unfortunately this includes the Bon Jovi frontman


8. Rockin' in the Free World, Neil Young. This 'free world' musically speaking, is more like a police state run by a strong-armed military junta


7. Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen. The second piece of Canadiana desecrated by the Garden State purveyors of garden-variety pop rock, that neither pops nor rocks.


6. I Thank You, Hayes & Porter, as performed by Sam & Dave. Debasing the Stax Records legacy




5. Not Fade Away, Buddy Holly & Norman Petty, made famous by Buddy Holly & the Crickets. Contrary to the wishes of music fans, Bon Jovi have been living up to the title



4. Fever Eddie Cooley & John Davenport, made famous by Peggy Lee
A rectal thermometer would fail to detect any heat emanating from this lukewarm version.



3. Twist & Shout by Phil Medley & Bert Russell, made famous by the Isley Brothers and the Fab Four. If the Isley Brothers got wind of this, they'd commit fratricide.






2. Help by Lennon & McCartney. This is beyond 'Help'. If Paul McCartney heard this, he'd pummel Jon Bon with Heather Mills' peg leg

1. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. by Otis Redding, made famous by Aretha Franklin
Bon Jovi's ironic, disrespectful take on Redding's classic

Soccer Player DUI Bust En Route to Practice

If you're in a bar and dragged into a discussion over what constitutes a sport and the waitress can't come quickly enough with your bill so that you can extricate yourself from the situation--- without suffering a pounding headache in addition to the one you've already sustained from the pitchers of stale beer--here are two definitions that will serve you well:

1. If you perspire during play, it's a sport (this disqualifies baseball and cricket).
[Editor's note: If the horse perspires, this doesn't count. If you're playing patio darts and you perspire, it doesn't count either]

2. If you're able to quaff a beer without interrupting the course of play, it's not a sport (this includes bowling, darts and the aforementioned baseball and cricket).

That being said, this doesn't diminish the athletic achievements of one John Daly, spotlighted earlier in the first installment of our Boozing Athletes series, whose ability to swing a golf club while simultaneously pinching the bottoms of clubhouse staff and swilling beers, leaves him in a class by himself, at least as far as athletes are concerned.

Today, we turn our attention to the world's most popular sport, soccer, or 'football' to those who take great pains in pointing out its proper name, despite this being news to absolutely no one. It's quite common for the average punter to lament how athletes sign a big fat extension, and proceed to phone in their performance once the pen has graced the surface of the contract. Of course, there are exceptions. One guy who can't be accused of dogging it, is Norwich midfielder Matthew Pattison, whose nightclub piss up the night before, or more accurately, three hours before, did not prevent him from attempting to make his morning practice.

What did, though, was the presence of cops tipped off by the hotel owner where Pattison was staying and, as a result, the first and only orange pylons he encountered that day were those of the roadside spot check.

It's not uncommon for a night on the town to blur into a day at the office, but in many cases, say that of the ornery bus driver who burps a reply when asked for directions, they're not the most physically demanding of jobs and you can blame your computer monitor for your bloodshot eyes if the bossman happens by the cubicle.

Now, if you're a professional athlete, it's a different story. Soccer players are well-known to shed 10 lbs during 90 minutes of play, and to keep up this level of match fitness, practice drills are intense enough to have even sober players rainbow retching all over the pitch. Luckily for Pattison, he was able to spend a few, less grueling hours, drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and filling out police paperwork.

Drunk Driver Calls 911 on Self: Hello Wisconsin!

As we've noted in previous posts, to the point of smacking our heads repeatedly against the steering wheel in frustration, we unequivocally, in no way whatsoever endorse impaired driving---our Top Ten Greatest Drinking & Driving Anthems of All Time referring solely to the soundtrack of a drunken, Grand Theft Auto game in the confines of one's moldy basement.

That being said, we've taken great pleasure here in pointing out the folly of those who do get behind the wheel blotto and while this may not garner any favor with those who fly red ribbons from their antennae, we'd be hypocrites if we claimed otherwise---as authors of a sizable chapter in our book entitled, Contents May Shift in Transit: Drunk and on the Move.

In a subsection of the above, Chariots of Firewater no less, we noted a drunk driver in Germany who got sidetracked with a flat, and in a breach of male etiquette dictating that you change your own damn tire drunk or otherwise, decided to phone for help. In his compromised state, he unwittingly called police instead of roadside assistance, presumably missing the 'Hello---police', on the other end and then blurting out that a mechanic should be dispatched post-haste as he was very drunk and things would turn ugly for him if the cops arrived. Which they did.

In Wisconsin, a woman decided to call 911 dispatch while driving home drunk from a local watering hole. The following is a transcript of the conversation.

Caller: I just want to know if somebody can follow me home because somebody seems to think I can't drive home straight.

911 Operator: OK, why is that?

Caller: He seems to think I am too intoxicated to drive.

911 Operator: OK, and so you called 911, or he called 911?

Caller: Well, he wanted me to call 911 because he thinks I'm too drunk to drive.

The 'he' in this case was a boyfriend who'd consumed a 12-pack by himself, yet still had the wherewithal to point out the driver, who'd knocked back 6, should not be getting behind the wheel (and yet no foresight or judgment whatsoever to pass up a ride home).

The woman failed the Breathalyzer and was ticketed in her own garage, but not before earning the unlikely kudos from a county sheriff (possibly, a distant relation):

"I think a judge will look at her and say, 'You know what? You stepped up to the plate. You did the right thing. I think it's commendable."

Low Rider: Man Arrested for drunk driving a lawn mower

Hustler, the company that makes lawnmowers, not the magazine known for more beaver shots than Canadian tourism literature, claims its 'Super Z' riding mower is the fastest production zero turn mower on the market.

Given that our subscription to Popular Mechanics has expired, we're going to have to take their word for it, not to mention the fact that we both live in high rise apartment buildings and require binoculars to see actual grass.

We imagine that you wouldn't necessarily want to go off roadin' with the missus on one of these bad boys, but for a mower it can certainly scorch rubber with nearly 30 horsepower. And with a top speed of 15 miles an hour, it's just powerful enough so that you can drag race a Segway scooter and leave it in the dust too, provided there is a mighty tail wind kicking up.

Riding mowers may be getting faster, but manufacturers may want to think twice about making cup holders standard, following the wasted antics of a New Zealander, who was stopped by police for generating not exactly G-forces at a whopping 5 miles an hour.

The man, who'd already had his real license suspended, had been using his riding mower to get around---which he won't any longer, as police impounded it for a month.

The blade runner defended himself, saying even bicycles went faster than his unorthodox chariot: "I've watched them go past me."

On a somewhat related note, Memphis-based Tiger Time Lawn care has been doing booming business with their low-cut bikini clad maintenance service since its inception last year.

For a 'slightly higher fee than a normal grass cut' the company will send over a woman hopefully not unlike those pictured in their promotional material so you can enjoy a beverage in the comfort of your lawn-chair, and not risk becoming another tragic, one man statistic.