Blaze of Glory Lyrics

Well they tell me that I'm wanted

The lyric here nods at another Western-themed Bon Jovi hit, "Wanted Dead or Alive" off the megaplatinum 1986 album Slippery When Wet.

It was "Wanted" that got Bon Jovi his gig writing the soundtrack to Young Guns II. Screenwriter John Fusco had frequently listened to "Wanted" for inspiration while writing the first Young Guns film, which was a minor hit in 1988. When Fusco began working on the sequel a few years later, he hoped to play "Wanted" during the closing credits.

Bon Jovi, a fan of the flims, was flattered but worried that that lyrics to "Wanted"—which are really about the outlaw lifestyles of modern-day rock stars, not Old West cowboys—weren't quite appropriate to the film's subject matter. He offered to write up a new song, he later recalled, that would "be in the vein of 'Wanted' [...] but with lyrics that fit their movie" (source).

He produced exactly that in "Blaze of Glory," a song that sounds almost exactly like "Wanted Dead or Alive" but with lyrics about Billy the Kid.