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#12 Blaze of Glory - When Rock Went West · The Kevin Stone Podcast

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  Speaker 2: Were listening to the Kevinstone Podcast broadcasting to you from
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  Speaker 2: an unknown location.
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  Speaker 1: Customized listener. Let's begin by cleaning those ears.
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  Speaker 2: Who am I? I'm a nobody. I just happen to
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  Speaker 2: have a camera and a microphone and an Internet connection,
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  Speaker 2: which makes me a superstar. I have beef ancheladas in
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  Speaker 2: the oven.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and mam or are they frozen?
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  Speaker 2: So they won't be frozen? In about thirty five minutes,
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  Speaker 2: all right, welcome to the Kevinstone Pod. Today. We're going
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  Speaker 2: to go back to nineteen ninety and we're talking about
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  Speaker 2: one of those songs. You don't need more than about
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  Speaker 2: five seconds before you know exactly which song it is.
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  Speaker 2: John bon Jovi's Blaze of Glory. Not technically a bon
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  Speaker 2: Jovie band song, by the way, This was bon Jovi
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  Speaker 2: stepping outside of the band and releasing his debut solo single,
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  Speaker 2: and he didn't exactly ease into the solo career. No
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  Speaker 2: quiet acoustic song, no experimental little number that disappeared somewhere
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  Speaker 2: around seventy three on the charts.
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  Speaker 1: Nope.
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  Speaker 2: The man basically kicked open the saloon doors, strapped on
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  Speaker 2: his six string borrolability Kid's attitude, and announced I'm going
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  Speaker 2: out in a blaze of glory, and America said, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: we'll take some of that. The song reached number one
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  Speaker 2: on the Billboard Hot one hundred and September nineteen ninety,
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  Speaker 2: but more than three decades later, I don't think the
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  Speaker 2: interesting thing about Blaze of Glory is where it landed
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  Speaker 2: on the charts. Interesting thing is why the song still works,
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  Speaker 2: because underneath all the guitars, cowboy imagery and early nineties
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  Speaker 2: rockstar hair is a song about something much bigger. How
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  Speaker 2: do you want to face the end? Today? We're going
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  Speaker 2: to talk about the movie that inspired it, the musicians
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  Speaker 2: who helped create it, what I think the song is
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  Speaker 2: really saying, and why Blaze of Glory still sounds like
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  Speaker 2: somebody turned a Western movie into a rock song. Hugh
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  Speaker 2: the Imaginary six Shooters. Let's get into it YOUO, I'll
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  Speaker 2: make you famous. Blaze of Glory is closely connected to
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  Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties movie Young Guns two, And if you
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  Speaker 2: weren't around for the Young Guns era, you got to
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  Speaker 2: understand something. Hollywood basically looked at the Westerns and said,
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  Speaker 2: you know what, this genre needs young movie stars with
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  Speaker 2: really good hair, and suddenly you've got a Medio Estevez
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  Speaker 2: playing Billy the Kid alongside guys like Keiper Sutherland and
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  Speaker 2: Lou Diamond Phillips. Young Gun two continued the story of
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  Speaker 2: Billity Kid in his game, and John bon Jovi ended
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  Speaker 2: up creating music inspired by the movie. The resulting album
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  Speaker 2: wasn't simply another bon Jovie record. Contemporary reports described it
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  Speaker 2: as a collection of material inspired by Young Guns two,
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  Speaker 2: featuring several songs heard in the film, and the title
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  Speaker 2: track became the monster Blaze of Glory. The interesting thing
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  Speaker 2: is that John wasn't writing about being a rock star.
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  Speaker 2: It was riding from a perspective of an outlaw, a
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  Speaker 2: man who knows people are coming for him, a man
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  Speaker 2: who knows his choices have consequences, a man who isn't
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  Speaker 2: exactly expecting to retire peacefully. Somewhere in Florida Billy. The
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  Speaker 2: kid wasn't sitting around comparing retirement plans. He had bigger problems,
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  Speaker 2: like everybody with a badge wanting to shoot him. One
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  Speaker 2: reason this song still works is the production. It's cinematic.
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  Speaker 2: It starts with that Western atmosphere and gradually builds until
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  Speaker 2: the whole thing becomes enormous. And John bon Jovi had
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  Speaker 2: some serious musicians helping him. The recording credits include Jeff
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  Speaker 2: Beck on lead guitar, Randy Jackson on bass, and Kenny
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  Speaker 2: Arnoff on drums. Yes, that Randy Jackson. Before millions of
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  Speaker 2: people knew him from American Idol, the man had quite
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  Speaker 2: a resume as a bass player. And then you've got
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  Speaker 2: Jeff Beck, one of the great guitar players. That guitar
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  Speaker 2: doesn't just decorate blaze of glory. It helps create the landscape.
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  Speaker 2: You can almost see the dust, you can picture the horses,
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  Speaker 2: You can picture somebody standing on the edge of town thinking, well,
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  Speaker 2: this has gone to hell in a hambasket. The song
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  Speaker 2: feels huge because it's supposed to. This isn't somebody quiet
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  Speaker 2: reflecting on life, drinking coffee at the kitchen table. This
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  Speaker 2: is a man staring down judgment. Here's where Blade's Glory
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  Speaker 2: becomes more interesting than just another rock anthem. On the surface,
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  Speaker 2: it's an outlaw song. There's danger, defiance, death, faith, regret.
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  Speaker 2: But underneath all that, I hear a man trying to
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  Speaker 2: figure out who he actually is before somebody else decided.
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  Speaker 2: For that's what makes it relatable. Most of us aren't outlaws. Hopefully,
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  Speaker 2: if you're a listening to this podcast while hiding from
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  Speaker 2: a posse, I appreciate the download, but you've probably got
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  Speaker 2: more important things to deal with right now. For everybody else,
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  Speaker 2: there's still something familiar here, because eventually we all have
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  Speaker 2: to deal with the differences between our reputation and our character,
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  Speaker 2: what people say about us versus what we know about ourselves,
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes they're very different things. The character speaking through
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  Speaker 2: this song understands that people have already judged him, He's
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  Speaker 2: been labeled, he's made mistakes, he's lived violently, and now
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  Speaker 2: the bill is coming due. But he's still asking is
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  Speaker 2: this all I am? That's a surprisingly deep question for
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  Speaker 2: a song we usually crank up while driving down the
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  Speaker 2: highway pretending we're starring in a Western. There's another theme
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  Speaker 2: through the song that I find interesting responsibility versus circumstances.
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  Speaker 2: How much of your life is something you chose, and
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  Speaker 2: how much of it has happened because the world you
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  Speaker 2: were dropped into. That's one of humanity's oldest arguments. We
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  Speaker 2: love taking credit when everything goes right. I worked hard,
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  Speaker 2: I made good decisions, I built this. But when everything
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  Speaker 2: falls apart, suddenly we're professional historians. Well, you have to
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  Speaker 2: understand the circumstances. Funny how that works. But the outlaw
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  Speaker 2: narrator in Blaze of Glory seems caught between the two.
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  Speaker 2: He recognizes his choices, but he also recognizes the world
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  Speaker 2: that shaped those choices, and I think that's one reason
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  Speaker 2: the song has more weight than a typical tough guy anthem.
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  Speaker 2: There's vulnerability underneath the bravado. There's vulnerabole, there's vulnerable, there's vulneravulnabitter,
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  Speaker 2: spit it out. There's also a spiritual element running through
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  Speaker 2: Blaze of Glory. The narrator isn't simply worried about dying.
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  Speaker 2: He's thinking about judgment and what happens when everything you've
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  Speaker 2: done finally catches up with you. And that's where the
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  Speaker 2: song becomes almost like a confession, not necessarily repentance. That's
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  Speaker 2: an important distinction. More like a man standing at the
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  Speaker 2: end of the road saying this is who I've been,
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  Speaker 2: this is what I've done, and now I have to
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  Speaker 2: answer for it. That's powerful territory for a rock song,
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  Speaker 2: because suddenly the cowboy story isn't just about billy to
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  Speaker 2: kid anymore. It's about everybody. You don't have to be
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  Speaker 2: facing a fire and squad to wonder did I live
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  Speaker 2: the right way? Did I waste my time? What will
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  Speaker 2: people remember about me? And maybe the biggest one, if
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  Speaker 2: today were the end, would I be satisfied with the
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  Speaker 2: person I've become? Now we've gone from bon Jovi to
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  Speaker 2: an existential crisis. You're welcome.
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  Speaker 1: All right.
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  Speaker 2: Before we all start re evaluating every decision we've made
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  Speaker 2: since junior high, we're going to take a quick break.
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  Speaker 2: Did you know that if you become a paid subscriber
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  Speaker 2: to this podcast, you'll get a commercial free experience and
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  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Kevinstone Podcast, and today we're talking
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  Speaker 2: about bond Jovi's nineteen ninety hit Blaze of Glory. Think
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  Speaker 2: about the music landscape when the song arrived. Nineteen ninety
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  Speaker 2: was an interesting transition period. The giant rock bands of
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  Speaker 2: the eighties were still around, but things were starting to change.
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  Speaker 2: Grungs was right around the corner. Pop was evolving, hip
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  Speaker 2: hop was becoming increasingly important to mainstream music, and sitting
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  Speaker 2: right in the middle of that changing landscape was John
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  Speaker 2: bon Jovi singing a cowboy song naturally and somehow it worked, Actually,
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  Speaker 2: it worked really well. The single hit number one on
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  Speaker 2: the Billboard Hot one hundred and Billboards year in ranking
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  Speaker 2: placed it among the top ten songs of nineteen ninety.
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  Speaker 2: The album took off two contemporary reporting from the Los
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  Speaker 2: Angeles Times noted that the Blazer Glory album shot the
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  Speaker 2: number three on Billboard's album chart only three weeks after entering.
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  Speaker 2: That's not exactly a side project disappearing into obscurity. That's
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  Speaker 2: walking away from one of the biggest rock bands in
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  Speaker 2: the world for a minute and discovering, oh, apparently I
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  Speaker 2: can do this too. So why does Blaze of Glory
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  Speaker 2: still hold up for me? It's because the song commits
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  Speaker 2: completely to what it's trying to be. There's no wink
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  Speaker 2: at the audience, no embarrassment, no apology. It's dramatic, it's theatrical,
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  Speaker 2: it's loud, it's emotional, and it's completely comfortable being all
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  Speaker 2: of those things. Modern culture sometimes seems terrified of sincerity.
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  Speaker 2: Everything has to have a little irony attached to it.
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  Speaker 2: We can't just simply enjoy something anymore. We have to
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  Speaker 2: explain that we know it's cheesy before somebody else points
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  Speaker 2: it out. Blazer Glory doesn't care a song walks into
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  Speaker 2: the room wearing boots, carrying a guitar, and acting like
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  Speaker 2: the fate of the entire Western Frontier depends on the
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  Speaker 2: next five minutes. I respect that sometimes music should be
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  Speaker 2: larger than line. Think about that phrase, Blaze of Glory.
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  Speaker 2: There's something seductive about it going down, fighting, being remembered,
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  Speaker 2: make them one final stand. But here's the question that
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  Speaker 2: the song makes me think about. What's more important how
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  Speaker 2: we go out or how you live before you get there.
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  Speaker 2: Because everybody likes the idea of the dramatic final stand,
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  Speaker 2: nobody makes a movie about the guy who quietly pay
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  Speaker 2: d his bills for four years, treated people decently, went
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  Speaker 2: to work every morning and remember to change the airfield.
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  Speaker 2: Although maybe we should come in this summer responsible Gary,
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  Speaker 2: he changed the oil every five thousand miles Great to PG. Thirteen.
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  Speaker 2: But the legacy usually isn't created in one dramatic moment.
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  Speaker 2: It's built through thousands of boring little decisions. How you
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  Speaker 2: treated somebody when there was nothing in it for you,
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  Speaker 2: Whether you kept your word, whether people could depend on you,
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  Speaker 2: whether you admitted when you were wrong. That's your legacy.
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  Speaker 2: And maybe the strange lesson hiding inside the big rock
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  Speaker 2: and roll cowboy anthem, you don't need a Blaze of glory,
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  Speaker 2: you need a life worth remembering. Blaze of Glory came
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  Speaker 2: out in nineteen ninety as John bon Jovi's debut solo single,
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  Speaker 2: connected to Young Guns, and became a number one hit,
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  Speaker 2: but charts don't explain while people are still listening to
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  Speaker 2: it decades later. Songs survived because they make us feel something,
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  Speaker 2: and Blaze of Glory does turn it up loud enough,
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  Speaker 2: and suddenly you're not driving to Walmart anymore. You're riding
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  Speaker 2: across New Mexico. There's a posse behind you, Jeff Beck
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  Speaker 2: is apparently following you around playing guitar, and you've got
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  Speaker 2: approximately five minutes and thirty seconds to settle every unresolved
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  Speaker 2: issue in your life. That's the power of a great
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  Speaker 2: rock song. It takes somebody else's story and somehow it
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  Speaker 2: makes you see a little bit of your own. So
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  Speaker 2: maybe the question isn't whether we're going to go out
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  Speaker 2: and a blaze of glory. Maybe the question is what
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  Speaker 2: are we going to do with the time before we
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  Speaker 2: get there. I'm Kevinstone. This has been the Kevinstone Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and until next time, keep the volume up,
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  Speaker 2: keep asking questions, and if you see a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: cowboys riding towards your house, maybe you shouldn't wait for
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  Speaker 2: the guitar solo. I'll talk to you next time.