Jon Bon Jovi Wrote His Young Guns II Song Over Dinner With Kiefer Sutherland And Emilio Estevez
The 1990 song "Blaze of Glory" from the "Young Guns II" soundtrack is impossible to resist. I feel pretty confident in saying that, when you read the title of that song, it began playing in your head. In fact, you'll be singing it for the rest of the day, and if anyone else is around, they'll join in with the harmony. Maybe you, like a young version of me, watched the video repeatedly, admiring ... the music. I didn't mean the exceedingly good-looking Jon Bon Jovi himself. Okay, that's a lie, but the song really is pretty great. There is a reason it's performed at every karaoke bar, including the fictional one in the afterlife in "The Good Place."
What you might not have realized about the song you cannot stop singing now that I've mentioned it, is that it was written over dinner with two stars of the 1990 sequel to 1988's "Young Guns." Star Kiefer Sutherland ("The Lost Boys," "24," "Flatliners"), who reprised the role of Josiah Gordon "Doc" Scurlock in "Young Guns II," spoke about it in a January 2022 interview with Independent.co.uk.
If you're unfamiliar with the two films, they're the stories of the famous outlaw Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) and the band of Regulators he ran with. Both films were chock full of Brat Packers, including Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, and Dermot Mulroney in the first film, with Estevez, Sutherland, and Phillips returning in the second, joined by Christian Slater, William Petersen, Alan Ruck, and Balthazar Getty. Bon Jovi even has an uncredited cameo in the second film.
'You son of a b****, you really did it!'
According to Yahoo! (via Lord Kayoss), Emilio Estevez had initially approached Bon Jovi to use "Wanted Dead Or Alive," but Bon Jovi didn't think the lyrics suited the film. The singer/songwriter read the script and came up with "Blaze of Glory" really quickly. The song went on to reach #1 with the eponymous album (inspired by the film and Bon Jovi's first solo offering) hitting double platinum.
As Estevez's co-star, Kiefer Sutherland told the Independent:
"We were out having a bunch of drinks and something to eat with Emilio Estevez (who played Billy the Kid) and Jon said: 'Here's the first song. Here's the single.' He pushed across these napkins that he'd been writing on all through dinner, which was maybe 20 minutes, and he'd got the whole of 'Blaze of Glory' written down on three napkins. I'm looking at him going: 'You really just wrote this now?' Six months later, I was in Montana trying to find a TV for my house, and as I walk into the store every TV in the place has Jon Bon Jovi singing "Blaze of Glory" on it. I was like: 'You son of a b****, you really did it!' He's a badass songwriter, and that's a clever song."
That's pretty mind-blowing. Plus, we're all still singing it over 30 years later. If that wasn't enough, "Blaze of Glory" was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards that year. If you want to do a rewatch, Prime Video both films for free with a subscription.
Now, go forth and sing your heart out. The neighbors are only complaining because you're not loud enough.