“Have A Nice Day” by Bon Jovi

"Have a Nice Day" was the first single off Bon Jovi's 2005 album, which shares its name, and the title is a bit of misdirection: under the smiley-face greeting sits a song about tolerance and defiance, a grin with its teeth showing. Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora and John Shanks wrote and produced it together, with Desmond Child as executive producer and Chris Lord-Alge and Jeremy Wheatley mixing.

It comes on with a propulsive barrage of power chords and Jon's vocal curled into a sneer, and the hooks are the band's stock in trade, which is why critics kept holding it up against "It's My Life", sometimes kindly, sometimes not. Sambora plays guitar, David Bryan keyboards, Hugh McDonald bass and Tico Torres drums. It went top ten in eleven countries, and the ad agency Deutsch built its video around a scowling smiley face.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.