You know me as a Duranie. The internet knows me as a Duranie —seriously, do a Google search for Chrissie and Duran Duran and AI brings up information about me, not the lyrics to a song they wrote that appears on their first album with my name in it. Freaky!
But ever since last Fall, on my way home from Denton’s The Orchard Keeper, from a few days of writing, I have been stuck on something besides 80s on 8 on Sirius XM when I travel. As I started Bruce to leave, I was about to hit the button for 80s on 8 like I almost always do (occasionally, I hit First Wave, another 80s station), when my finger inexplicably selected the Bon Jovi Channel.
I’ve always liked Bon Jovi’s music, and, of course, Jon Bon Jovi. What’s not to like? Slippery When Wet was great, but New Jersey was just about perfect, one of those rare albums where I listened to every song without hitting skip on any song on the CD, ever. Like a lot of the bands of the 80s, though, I lost track of them after that decade ended.
Flash forward to 2000. I started grad school at UT, doing 95% of the program online, and I discovered they had a new album out —Crush. Crush proved to be anti-skip worthy, too, from the bombastic anthem, “It’s My Life,” (which described where I was in life just about perfectly, starting grad school, starting my first serious relationship, and moving to a new place); to “Just Older,” (which I was starting to feel at the age of thirty); to the quirky “Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars” (which never fails to make me smile, even to this day); and so many more songs. “Thank You for Loving Me” became the song I sang in my heart to Russ, as I played this CD so many times I wore it out during the year-and-a-half I was in my grad school program, including the time Russ and I were engaged and the first year we were married. I jammed to it from the time I came home from work —whether it was from the Bristol Public Library, or whether from Northeast State, when I switched to working there —and listened until class started, then started up the CD again as soon as class finished while I worked on homework, until bedtime.
When I left Denton’s in October and inexplicably chose the Bon Jovi Channel, they were about to start a song-by-song playing of Crush, with Jon Bon Jovi talking about each of the songs in-between. I felt like Jon and I were having this great conversation about old friends all the way through the broadcast of that program. When that wrapped up, I left the channel on. I heard some old favorites and heard other songs I didn’t know, many of which I really liked and which have since become new favorites.
My mantra for 2026 is one of those new favorites. “Welcome to Wherever You Are.” Due to copyright laws, I won’t reprint the lyrics in full, but I hope you will Google them. The song is about how, no matter how good or bad things are going, there’s a reason; we all have a purpose, even when we feel like it’s a mistake we’re here. The chorus proclaims, “Welcome to wherever you are/ This is your life, you made it this far/ Welcome, you gotta believe/ That right here, right now, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be/ Welcome to wherever you are.” Here’s the YouTube link: Bon Jovi – Welcome To Wherever You Are I hope you take faith in the lyrics like I have. “Remember that you’re perfect/ God makes no mistakes.”
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