Much like the opening note of My Chemical Romance's emo call-to-arms "Welcome to the Black Parade," the first hit of percussion in Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" unlocks something inside of us — but according to the auteur, he only wrote the eventual entry into the CanCon canon because it made him laugh.
In a new interview with The Independent, Adams admitted that the track from his fourth studio album Reckless wasn't something he took super seriously. As journalist Michael Hann notes in the article, "Summer of '69" is now comfortably the singer-songwriter's most popular song on streaming. The same goes for Canadian radio, as you'll know if you've spent any time here since its release as a single in 1985.
Nearly a decade after that initial release, Adams apparently got a call from his label letting him know that the song had gone No. 1 in Holland.
"Even though the song had a little bit of a life in North America, it took 10 years for it to become well known — [and] it never even hit the charts in the UK," the musician explained. "And so perhaps there's something about the songs that we write that just don't necessarily have that instant appeal. But in the long term, they climb out of the wreckage."
He added: "I only ever wrote that title because it made me laugh."
So we're not laughing at him, we're laughing with him — and as aforementioned, the reflexive nostalgia that thinking about someone getting their first real six-string at an old-timey Five and Dime summons is certainly a force.
While nothing can last forever, we'll always have "Summer of '69."
Relive the days when that summer seemed to last forever — and maybe have a giggle — by revisiting the track below.
Adams is currently recovering from having COVID twice in the same month after blaming the pandemic on "bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards." Oh, and he's releasing a new album called So Happy It Hurts.
In a new interview with The Independent, Adams admitted that the track from his fourth studio album Reckless wasn't something he took super seriously. As journalist Michael Hann notes in the article, "Summer of '69" is now comfortably the singer-songwriter's most popular song on streaming. The same goes for Canadian radio, as you'll know if you've spent any time here since its release as a single in 1985.
Nearly a decade after that initial release, Adams apparently got a call from his label letting him know that the song had gone No. 1 in Holland.
"Even though the song had a little bit of a life in North America, it took 10 years for it to become well known — [and] it never even hit the charts in the UK," the musician explained. "And so perhaps there's something about the songs that we write that just don't necessarily have that instant appeal. But in the long term, they climb out of the wreckage."
He added: "I only ever wrote that title because it made me laugh."
So we're not laughing at him, we're laughing with him — and as aforementioned, the reflexive nostalgia that thinking about someone getting their first real six-string at an old-timey Five and Dime summons is certainly a force.
While nothing can last forever, we'll always have "Summer of '69."
Relive the days when that summer seemed to last forever — and maybe have a giggle — by revisiting the track below.
Adams is currently recovering from having COVID twice in the same month after blaming the pandemic on "bat eating, wet market animal selling, virus making greedy bastards." Oh, and he's releasing a new album called So Happy It Hurts.
