Bon Jovi: The New Nostradamus ?

By afdhel aziz 

It is the day after Diana's death. The TV continuously spews out images of a blonde, 
blue eyed icon with perfect teeth, endless sex appeal and the adoration of millions. 
One of those ephemeral beings who has spent their fair share of time 
in the back seats of limousines, sipping champagne in private jets 
and disembarking to the strobing flashbulbs of international paparazzi.
 Breathless housewives and gawky teenagers alike from Des Moines to Jakarta 
have flipped through magazines desperate for more information about 
this icon who has been in our public consciousness for over a decade 
now. In short,  the channel I'm watching MTV and the Artist of the Month is Jon Bon Jovi.

This monumental event is celebrated by the endless rotation  of videos
 from the erstwhile King of the Poodle Perms introduced by the man 
himself  in what looks like an industrial ironworks in New Jersey. 
Sick of the media slavering over Diana's death on the other channels, 
 I've switched over to the relative mindlessness of Music Television. 
But what makes me sit bolt upright and watch the screen closely was 
when Jon came on the screen in his new video "Midnight in Chelsea"
 from the album "Destination Anywhere". Maybe it was the Diana 
overdose sprawled all over the other channels - but goddammit, 
it sounded like Bon Jovi was singing about Diana . After all , 
where the hell is her palace located in ? That's right. 
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. My curiosity is aroused.
 Two days, I pick up a copy of the album and turn to the lyrics. 
Now Bon Jovi's lyrics have long been the object of some ridicule 
in my book. For a long time, it seemed like he was simply playing
  Spin the Bottle with a select group of macho motifs . Hence a 
typical Bon lyric would probably go like this :

I've got a sixgun for my pillow
an old beer can for my bed
I got a bottle of Jack Daniel's for my teddy bear
and a Harley Davidson parked near my head"

Or words to that effect.
 It must be admitted his songwriting has improved considerably
 in the last couple of years but I never anticipated anything 
like this. Here's what I found while scanning the lyrics to 'Midnight
 in Chelsea' . The first verse can be taken as a reading of the trauma
tic  part of Diana's marriage , if you were a) highly prejudiced again
st the royal family and Prince Charles or b) Andrew Morton :

"It takes a little bit of getting used to
The old man with the whiskey stains
Lost the night forgot his name
His poor wife will sleep alone again
And it ain't hard to understand
Why she's holding onto her own hand"

So far, possessed of a Nostradamian vagueness as predictions go.
 But now, here comes the kicker, the crunch, the one that really 
gave me spineshiver. The second verse:

"I've seen a lone Sloane Ranger drive
Seems her chauffeur took a dive
And sold her secrets to the Sun
And later in a magazine
I finally figured what it means
to be a saint not a queen"

Shock Gasp Horror  !! This video was already well into heavy rotation
 by the time of the car crash. Does this reveal hitherto undiscovered
 psychic powers on the part of the new leading man ???? My god, 
we could be talking about the new Edgar Cayce here ! Maybe it was 
the haircut that did it . The next verse is the final kick in the
 teeth , the coup de grace, the big kahuna ....

" Two lustful lovers catch a spark
And chase their shadows in the dark
Someone's getting off tonight
Of a big red bus that's packed so tight
It disappears in a trail of light
Somewhere , someone's dreaming baby it's all right

Two lustful lovers ? Dodi and Diana. A spark ? 
The flash of a stalkarozzi's camera ? "Chasing shadows in the dark ?"
 The mad chase through the streets of Paris , that ended in someone
 "getting off"....stepping off this mortal coil ! And the big red bus 
! Er…..actually the big red bus is where my conspiracy theory falls 
gasping to the floor : Dodi and Di weren't in a big red bus, 
they were in a sleek black Mercedes. But you can imagine it 
disappearing in a trail of light, into that fateful tunnel……

And so we move on to the strangely elegiac chorus,
 what could almost be the inner thoughts of a bitter but
 sweet heroine to billions, sick of being idolised and canonised. 
Asleep in her bed at the palace, you wonder if she ever felt this way:

"It's midnight in Chelsea, midnight in Chelsea
No-one's asking me for favours
No-one's looking for a savior
they're too busy saving me "

All too surreal to be true ? One final verse and then I will lay
 this hypothesis to rest. Reports filtering through gossip columns
 in Europe indicate that Diana - shock/horror - may have been pregnant
 with Dodi's lovechild when she died. All probably entertaining 
balderdash of course, the sort of salacious detail that crops up 
in celebrity deaths, like the rumour that Elvis died on a toilet seat
 or that Marilyn Monroe was loaded up on drugs when she passed away.
 Transport yourself  back to the borough of Chelsea for this final dreamprayer , the wishes that spring to mind before the death of a princess:

" It's morning when I go to sleep
In the distant dawn a church bell rings
Another day is coming on
A baby's born, an old man dies
Somewhere young lovers kiss goodbye"

A lovechild of a princess and a man who is heir to one of the 
largest fortunes in the Western world - if his "old man dies". 
You could go on for days dissecting the rest of the lyrics ,
 for instance the lines "No-one's pinned their dreams on me/ 
No-one's asking me to bleed " -  denial if ever there was denial . 
But that might be overkill. So the verdict. Bon Jovi - rocker and
 wanna be leading man ? Or the New Nostradamus ? You be the judge.