Livin' on a Prayer

Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child wrote it, and it was released late in 1986. It spent four weeks at number one on the Hot 100 in February and March 1987 and reached number four in the UK. It made Bon Jovi the first hard rock band to top the Hot 100 with consecutive singles, according to Stereogum's Tom Breihan.

Jon was not sure it belonged on the album. He told the Irish Times he walked out of the room and suggested a movie soundtrack, and Sambora called him an idiot and said it was really good. Producer Bruce Fairbairn pushed for it. The band re-recorded it with a new bassline played by Hugh McDonald, uncredited, different drum fills and a talk box that Sambora played and that Fairbairn and Sambora had found in Sambora's box of effects. The first version is a hidden track on the box set 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong. The song is in E minor and moves up to G minor for the final chorus.

The story of Tommy and Gina came from life. Child told the Guardian that Gina was Maria Vidal, whose waitressing name was Gina Velvet, and that Tommy was himself. It began as Gina and Johnny until Jon said he could not sing Johnny, because it is his name. Jon said he wrote it during the Reagan era, and that trickle-down economics were inspirational to writing songs. The BBC called it a hair metal classic whose uplifting melody hides a gritty lyric.

The video, directed by Wayne Isham, was filmed on 17 September 1986 at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. It reached a billion YouTube views on 1 February 2023. In 1989 Jon and Sambora played an acoustic version at the MTV Video Music Awards, which MTV Unplugged's makers credit with shaping that show. After the attacks of 11 September 2001 the band played an acoustic version for New York. In November 2013 a viral video of a fan lip-syncing sent the song back into the Hot 100 at number 25. Rolling Stone placed it at number 457 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs.