Synopsis

Bon Jovi perform "Dry County" against the stark, sun-blasted landscape of California's Calico Dry Lake. The video uses wide shots of the barren terrain alongside close-ups of Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, emphasizing the song's sense of isolation, hardship, and faded promise. The band's performance is presented with a cinematic, desert-western atmosphere that reflects the track's story of struggling workers and communities left behind by the collapse of the oil industry.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed at Calico Dry Lake in California, a location whose cracked, empty landscape closely matches the song's themes of economic decline and desolation.

• Behind-the-scenes material from the shoot is dated November 26, 1993, although the single and video appeared in 1994.

• "Dry County" was the sixth and final single from the 1992 album *Keep the Faith*. The album version runs for 9 minutes and 52 seconds, making it Bon Jovi's longest studio-album track.

• The single used a 6-minute, 37-second radio edit, while the video is generally listed with a runtime of about seven minutes.

• The song grew out of Jon Bon Jovi's cross-country motorcycle trip. A stop in Texas, where he learned he was in a dry county, helped inspire the setting and narrative.

• The song focuses on the decline of the domestic oil industry and the people whose lives depended on it, giving the video a more socially conscious tone than a straightforward band-performance clip.

• "Dry County" was not included on the 1994 home-video compilation *Keep the Faith: The Videos*, because the single and video came out afterward. It was later included on the *Cross Road* video release.