G major · Camelot 9B · 74 BPM
Wanted Dead or Alive
by Bon Jovi
- 74
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 26
- Danceability
- 14
- Acousticness
The Recording Industry Association of America certified "Wanted Dead or Alive" quadruple platinum in 2015, nearly three decades after its release. The song had come out in 1987 as the third single from Bon Jovi's 1986 album Slippery When Wet, written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. It reached number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 13 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, making Slippery When Wet the first glam metal album to place three singles in the Hot 100's top 10.
Its origins went back to 1985, when Jon was riding a tour bus through the midwest and could not sleep. He was listening to Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" and told Sambora, "We got to write a song like this." The pair composed the track the following year, working in Sambora's mother's basement. Jon drew the title from his admiration for Old West heroes, seeing the life of a rock band as that of outlaws, a young band of thieves riding into town before the sun came up.
At the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, Jon and Sambora performed acoustic versions of the song and "Livin' on a Prayer". MTV Unplugged was already in development at the time, but its showrunners later credited that performance with reshaping the program, moving it away from young, up-and-coming artists and toward big stadium acts. The song later became the theme for Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch.
Wanted Dead or Alive runs at 74 BPM, the tempo of soul, trip-hop and half-time hip-hop. In classical terms it sits in largo territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3.24 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 811 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.