Bryan Adams: The mournful romantic
Bryan Adams — one of rock's most talented balladeers with a friendly, world-weathered rasp — turns 61 today.
What happens when the cowriters of one of the most successful songs differ in its interpretation? What happens when all this while families have been singing along with it when it plays on the car radio? And it has played a lot, and still does!
The song in question is the Summer of ’69. Bryan Adams — the Canadian guitarist, singer, composer — co-wrote this song with Jim Vallance for his smash album Reckless. According to Jim Vallance, when Bryan and he were writing the song, it was originally called the “Best Days of My Life”. The words “Summer of ’69” only appeared once. At some point, they realised that “Summer of ’69” was a better title, so they introduced the phrase into a few more places in the song.
“Standin' on
