When Bon Jovi rewrote the lyrics in a way that the last line repeated what the first line of the lyrics said, he came up with a title 'Lower the Flag'. After writing the song, Bon Jovi played the song for a group of people, including Shanks. He came up with the working title 'Four Dead in Ohio', which is derived from the lyrics of the song ' Ohio' by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. He continued tweaking it and realized that he did not have a proper title and the chorus for the song. Bon Jovi started to write the song on the day the shooting happened and wrote the first draft of the song over a period of two days. It concludes with the narrator reciting the names of cities caught in the crossfire, including Las Vegas, Sandy Hook Elementary, Orlando, Florida, and Columbine. The song laments that the news cycle will move on before there is time to grieve. 'Lower the Flag' is inspired by the 2019 Dayton shooting. The last verse 'somewhere there's a church bell/that's summoning the choir/somewhere there's a dreamer who would walk 1,000 miles' is a throwback to the Young Guns II (1990) era. It also calls for social justice, taking a stand and also calls for people to purge themselves from all of the hurt, hate and division and pursue them to search a man who is going to unify all the people. 'Let It Rain' is a song that calls for a cleansing of the spirit.

The song takes a journey through the circle of life, where suddenly the child becomes the parent and the parents are getting older. 'Story of Love' is a song about Bon Jovi's parenthood, family, children, wife and parents. I believe the greatest gift of an artist is the ability to use their voice to speak to issues that move us'. Bon Jovi explained: 'I was moved to write American Reckoning as a witness to history. 'American Reckoning' was inspired by the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter Movement. Bon Jovi wrote the song the day after his wife took a photo of him washing the dishes in a JBJ Soul Kitchen restaurant and published it on social media with caption 'If You Can't Do What You Do… Do What You Can'. 'Do What You Can' is a song about COVID-19 pandemic. 'Limitless' is a song that is encouraging optimism in an uncertain world and implores the listener to seize the day. The murder of George Floyd inspired him to write 'American Reckoning', and the pandemic gave him the opportunity to write 'Do What You Can'. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of the album was postponed, and a tour was cancelled. Bon Jovi then picked his favorite 10 songs, and for those songs, the band recorded vocals, guitar, piano, keyboard and percussion overdubs as well backing vocals sang by all of the band members.

During the period of 11 days in Nashville, band recorded bed tracks for 23 songs. Jon Bon Jovi recorded all the songs on his smartphone in poor audio quality and brought them to the rest of the band. On the same day, Jon posted 30-second long Instagram story videos showing him, Tico Torres, David Bryan, John Shanks, Hugh McDonald and Phil X tuning up their instruments in the same studio. Recording of the album started on Saturday, Main Ocean Way Recording studio in Nashville. The tracklist order also changed, as the first version of the album was set to start with 'Beautiful Drug' and finish with 'Blood in the Water'. Before the postponement, the songs 'Luv Can' and 'Shine' were initially part of the album, but were replaced with 'Do What You Can' and 'American Reckoning'. While in quarantine, lead singer Jon Bon Jovi wrote two songs that would be included in the final album: 'Do What You Can', which represents the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and 'American Reckoning', a protest song about the murder of George Floyd, written in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The music video for 'Do What You Can' was released on August 25, 2020. 'American Reckoning' was released on July 10, 2020, along with a lyric video, and 'Do What You Can' was released on July 23, 2020. The album's debut single 'Unbroken' was released in November 2019, and the second single 'Limitless' was released on February 20, 2020. The album was initially set for release on May 15, 2020, through Island, but was later pushed back to October 2, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 is the fifteenth studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi.

Bon jovi album release date