I think it's great song. What a shame it didn't end up on WAN. Would take it over Army of One or What About Now any day. I hope we'll hear the Bon Jovi version some day.
In terms of lyrical contents it's not that often Bon Jovi writes songs about "love" anymore. Kind of miss those kind of songs, as I think that's where Jon shines the most as a writer. Thoguht there were some decent lyrics in Burn With Me.

Great find! Even though it's an early demo, I like the song. Would love to hear it with a full production.

I wonder if we ever get to hear the rest of the WAN outtakes (Times Like These, Shine, State Of Our Union, etc.)

As stated here before - young Jon with a hungry and inspired band by his side could've made this a great song. I dare to imagine that during the KTF era this would've been a killer track.
But on WAN it wouldn't have made any difference. Without the power of earlier days songs like these are almost immediately forgotten since there so interchangeable.

Just had another thought: what if this one wasn't inteded for WAN, but was really written with and for her after all? As far as I know, we just know of the song, because it showed up on the ASCAP (?) list, or has it been stated somewhere that this one was written for the album? Doesn't mean it's not signature Bon Jovi, but maybe what Juliet Simms stated on her website is literally right:

"Here’s a demo of a song I did about a year ago with John Shanks. Co-written by Shanks and Jon Bon Jovi! Hope you like!"

Take a mediocre song like Good Guys. What makes that song so good, is the fact that the band rocks it and Jon sings his ass off. He's hitting high notes, his voice sounds youthful, and he's creative. "Hey Baby! Whooo Side You On"

If Jon wrote and sang this song in 2014, it would be the worst song ever.

I'm sure that's possible, yeah, but that'd be out of the ordinary for them. It's more likely it's a situation the same as Elvis in vegas, Nothing, These Open Arms, One to say goodbye etc.

This song showed up at the ASCAP at the same time with Pictures of you, Room at the end and Thick as Thieves. I clearly remember that.

BURN WITH ME
Work ID: 884246446
ISWC: Not Assigned
WritersIPI #Current
Affiliation
BON JOVI JON
SAMBORA RICHARD
SHANKS JOHN
M126233502

also it has the same publisher as all other WAN songs

Publishers / AdministratorsIPI
#Current Affiliation
551447456 BUMA
IMAGEM MUSIC NL

To be honest, I kinda like it, it's a nice pop song. Not sure how it would sound with nowadays Jon on vocals, but the song has some potential to get radio playing.

Ok, that makes my theory unlikely. And as I said before, it would perfectly fit on WAN, though that may also be due to the time when they wrote it. Still bums me that Richie is mentioned here and not on the Juliet Simms version. Maybe she just forgot to mention him, or are there official credits for that song? As far as I know, it's not been officially released yet...

Maybe John Shanks just told her "here's a track I wrote with Bon Jovi", and she assumed, like 95% of the population, that Bon Jovi are one person?