Summer of ’69 (1985) – Bryan Adams

Good Lord, this song casts me back to my Academy days, which I recalled in another song entry by Bryan Adams – Heaven. Today’s featured track – Summer of 69 had about the biggest tractor beam pull of any song to lure me onto the dance floor in my young adulthood. I’m not nearly as attached to these songs now, but I do like to hear them on the rare occasion to reminisce about my old friends and the good times we shared.

You can see Bryan above oozing the whole Springsteen ‘Born in the USA‘ vibe despite him being a Canadian singer-songwriter. It must have been popular international attire since where I come from on the far western suburbs of Sydney, we called people who donned this; not to be confused with the settled, crisp, happily country garb which reeked of ‘contented money’, rather the ‘untucked’ flannelette top – ‘westie’. But Bryan Adams would have hardly been their choice of music, rather something like ACDC.
Oh and by the way, the aforementioned is an example of how you too can inadvertently offend the maximum of readers in just one paragraph.

Summer of ‘69 is the fourth single from Bryan Adam’s fourth album, Reckless. Written by Adams and Jim Vallance, the song went through a number of changes because neither Adams nor Vallance was convinced it was a strong enough song to be featured on the album. In their first draft, the lyric “summer of ’69” appeared only once and was originally titled “Best Days of My Life”. On the final draft it had been replaced by “Summer of ’69” and appeared only two times throughout the song. You can read more in the Wikipedia reference below about its conception and how The Beatles – “Strawberry Fields Forever” was the main inspiration.

While Summer of ’69 does tell a story of a young man, potentially set in 1969, it was actually written about “making love in the summertime” according to Bryan in this CBS article, hence using the number “69” as a reference to sex. But co-writer Vallance disputes this.

The song was an international hit, reaching No 5 in the US and helped push Reckless to the number one position. It remains one of Adams’ most popular songs.

Fun Facts about his song:
– Singer Ryan Adams shared he “had to go into therapy” over the humiliation he’d suffered over several years of people confusing him with Bryan Adams and requesting this song at his concerts. Famously in 2002, a heckler shouted through seven straight songs requesting it, prompting Ryan to hand the man $40 and ask him to leave.
– As of 2017, Summer of ’69 was, at number 115, the only song from 1995 or earlier among the 150 most streamed songs of all time in Canada by Canadian artists…It is also the most played song on Canadian radio among songs by Canadian artists originally released before 1990.
– In a poll conducted by Decima Research in 2006, Summer of ’69 was voted the best driving song among Canadians who sing in their cars…In 2010, the song was voted the “hottest summer song” in Germany. 

[Verse 1]
I got my first real six-string
Bought it at the Five and Dime
Played it ’til my fingers bled
Was the summer of ’69

[Verse 2]
Me and some guys from school
Had a band and we tried real hard
Jimmy quit, Jody got married
Should’ve known we’d never get far

[Chorus 1]
Oh, when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Yeah, I’d always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life

Hey!

[Verse 3]
Ain’t no use in complainin’
When you got a job to do
Spent my evenings down at the drive-in
And that’s when I met you, yeah

References:
1. Summer of ’69 – Wikipedia
2. Summer of 69 – Genius

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“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand