Best days of my life

April 30, 2015 3:12 AM

In the same Nashville auditorium that he once ejected an audience member for repeatedly requesting it, Ryan Adams sings Summer of '69.
posted by pjenks (80 comments total)

Previously
posted by PenDevil at 3:59 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ryman...Ryan...Bryan...Adam...Adams.

That article confused me, since I had never heard of Ryan Adams, and RS calls Bryan Adams "Bryan Adam".

But that's a sweet version of that song.
posted by chavenet at 4:01 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

" played the 1985 hit alone, treating it not as a Reagan-era guilty pleasure, but as a moving, melodic tribute to young love and teenage dreams."

The original rendition as guilty pleasure? Oh Rolling Stone, you never change. Please never be hip.
posted by Yowser at 4:49 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

I always liked Bryan better anyway.
posted by jonmc at 4:56 AM on April 30, 2015

I always thought that song was good but suffered from tacky 80s era pop production values.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 5:04 AM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]

Great rendition, but was totally distracted trying to figure out the arcade games in the background.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:06 AM on April 30, 2015

That is the most depressing schmaltzy damn song. Like, 14 years old was seriously when you peaked? If I ever did that Hatesong thing over at AVclub, this would be a strong candidate.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 5:25 AM on April 30, 2015 [9 favorites]

A bit over a decade ago, I attended Oktoberfest (like, the actual one, in Munich) with a bunch of friends. For reasons that will be forever unknown to me, Summer of 69 was massively popular in the tents.

Sitting in the Hofbräuhaus tent with a liter of beer in my hand and witnessing the shift from a traditional German drinking song to drunken Germans standing on tables singing along with Bryan Adams was absolutely amazing.
posted by tocts at 5:29 AM on April 30, 2015 [18 favorites]

I'm very disappointed that Tocts didn't document his story with video.
posted by COD at 5:40 AM on April 30, 2015

Good for you Ryan Adams. Love > Hate.

14 years old was seriously when you peaked?

Guilty of what? BEING AWESOME???
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:43 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Rock journalism. Heh.
posted by Mike Mongo at 5:49 AM on April 30, 2015

Boy I loved this song.
But the end of the video confused/frustrated me.
The lady (who is probably his ex from that summer) is driving in the car with her new jerk boyfriend. She smiles. He notices. He asks "Who's that?". She doesn't answer. "I said, who's that"? She doesn't answer. The car screeches to a halt.

Then what??????
Does she get out and run back to him?

Also when I was a camp counselor, all the kids had to perform in a variety show.
So our cabin re-wrote this song, and it was called Summer of '94.

Incidentally those days were the best days of my life.
Oh yeah.
Back in the summer of ninety four.
posted by bitteroldman at 5:52 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Great rendition, but was totally distracted trying to figure out the arcade games in the background.


Asteroids and Frenzy. If he'd totally wanted to go 1985 I'd have suggested Ghosts 'n' Goblins and Space Harrier, myself.
posted by delfin at 5:53 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ryan Adams does great covers.
posted by clockzero at 5:56 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

bitteroldman: eponysterical
posted by pjenks at 5:57 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Ah, tocts, you should have made yourself a god among drunken Germans.

"Oh you like that, do you? Well boys, this is going to blow your minds. Repeat after me and then we'll add the melody. Hast du... jemals... eine Frau... wirklich geliebt?"
posted by Naberius at 6:36 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I can imagine what Ryan Adams went through. I had a high school classmate named Brian Adams who became a musician, and he had to change his name to avoid getting swamped with drunken fratboys yelling for "Summer of '69."
posted by jonp72 at 6:48 AM on April 30, 2015

He looks like that guy who kicked me out of his bakery one time! Really weird bakery, too, with rows of seats and a bunch of amps and no bread on display.

I don't get what his problem was. I just wanted some rye and anadama.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:51 AM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]

It's about time he got off his high horse and learned the damn song
posted by Renoroc at 7:00 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

I always wondered: If being confused with Bryan Adams used to bug Ryan Adams so much, why didn't he just adopt a stage name, or even just a valid variation of his own given name? Going by Ryan Adams' Wikipedia page, he could've decided to go by "David Adams" or "David Ryan Adams". But if changing one's name is good enough for a young David Jones (not the Monkee), it's certainly good enough for Mr. Adams.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:02 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

apropos of nothing but remarkably apropos of something too, Billy C. Wirtz has a song called "Freeway to Stairbird."

Probably NSFW. Definitely not for the easily offended. You are warned. I'm not linking it. Google the title it shows right up.
posted by spitbull at 7:04 AM on April 30, 2015

If being confused with Bryan Adams used to bug Ryan Adams so much, why didn't he just adopt a stage name, or even just a valid variation of his own given name?

Samir: Hmm... well, why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 7:06 AM on April 30, 2015 [31 favorites]

I appear to have gone through some kind of temporal anomaly, or slipped into an alternate reality. I remember the original kerfuffle over a heckler calling out "Summer of '69" at a Ryan Adams concert, but I would have sworn that was about four or five years ago, not more than twelve.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:26 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

A guy at the bike shop I go to is named Ryan Adams. I made a Whiskeytown joke once before. He rolled his eyes at me and I never referenced it again.
posted by slogger at 7:26 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

14 years old was seriously when you peaked?

How do you not know people for whom it's all been downhill since junior high/middle school?
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:29 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

There's more hook-laden power pop goodness in that one song than there is in Ryan Adams's entire oeuvre.

Also, I discovered today that Allmusic.com is pretending that Bryan Adams doesn't exist.
posted by goatdog at 7:30 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Also, I discovered today that Allmusic.com is pretending that Bryan Adams doesn't exist.

It's because he's not relevant.
posted by thelonius at 7:40 AM on April 30, 2015

14 years old? Isn't that when you're rolling with your #SQUAD?
posted by Gronk at 7:41 AM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]

There's more hook-laden power pop goodness in that one song than there is in Ryan Adams's entire oeuvre.

Only if you ignore Ryan's oeuvre up through 2001. If everything you know about Ryan Adams is Demolition and later, I wholeheartedly agree.
posted by entropicamericana at 7:42 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

If I'd been in that audience, I would have yelled out, "NOW DO 'HEAVEN'" when Ryan finished the "Summer of 69" rendition.
posted by orange swan at 7:43 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

Best concert heckling I saw was at a Ween show where the drummer held up sign "Go home Whitey".
posted by waving at 7:44 AM on April 30, 2015 [5 favorites]

So a while ago I flipped on NPR and Ryan Adams was on, talking in that raspy voice about how in high school he was an outcast and guitar saved his life, and how he was kind of a rebel. And then they were talking about his new album of covers, and he waxed poetic about his influences, and then sang a couple of things, like a scratchy but heartfelt "God Only Knows". Having growing up in the same town as him and having some acquaintances in common I was like, huh, but then I remembered that one of his idols who is a friend of mine was a big Beach Boys fan, so ok I guess I can see it. Then he did some 70s song and I was a bit surprised at whatever it was, but ... aw who knows.

They got to the end of the interview and then "Summer of '69" was the outro music and I was like SHIT THAT WHOLE TIME IT WAS BRYAN ADAMS I AM SUCH A F***ING DUMMY.
posted by freecellwizard at 7:47 AM on April 30, 2015 [13 favorites]

Also, I discovered today that Allmusic.com is pretending that Bryan Adams doesn't exist.

They have already apologized for him on numerous occasions.
posted by jonp72 at 7:56 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I think Jim Vallance needs a shout-out here too. The man can write great pop songs.
posted by Nevin at 8:09 AM on April 30, 2015

>>" played the 1985 hit alone, treating it not as a Reagan-era guilty pleasure, but as a moving, melodic tribute to young love and teenage dreams."

The original rendition as guilty pleasure? Oh Rolling Stone, you never change. Please never be hip.

Bryan Adams' Reckless was the soundtrack of the summer of 1985. Great stuff. I was in middle school back then. They played Heaven as the slow dance at the sock hop.
posted by Nevin at 8:17 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Pshaw, big deal. Call me when Ryan Adams covers John Quincy Adams' speech warning against foreign intervention.
posted by the phlegmatic king at 8:22 AM on April 30, 2015 [10 favorites]

In the early 90s I'd started dating this girl and it looked like it might become serious, and we were into that phase where you have those sort of exploring conversations where you find out about each other. One spur of the moment addendum that came out of even I don't know where:

Me: Do you like Bryan Adams?
Her: (long pause) ... No.
Me: Whew.
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:25 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

all me when Ryan Adams covers John Quincy Adams' speech warning against foreign intervention.

I can already tell you it will be at a slower tempo, acoustic, and in a minor key.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:26 AM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]

I feel like I've waded into the Denpit of Mass Crankyness. Like who you like, hate who you hate, music is subjective, etc. I know. But...Bryan Adams was the first proper live concert I ever went to. I was 12 or 13. The perfect age for his nostalgic, scratchy-voiced music. Teens are such feeling creatures (it's part of what makes them so wonderful), and Bryan Adams wrote music we could cling to. Summer of '69 was the ultimate look back on the good times, on the people who touched our lives before inevitable change came, as it always did. It's about those last days of freedom and about young love and about being unfiltered, before adulthood hits. And for someone like me, who had adult responsibility hoisted on my shoulders at a very young age, the songs holds a particular bittersweetness.

Funnily, Bryan Adams comes on the radio, I kid you not, every single time I cross the border into Canada. I've given up being weirded out and just accepted it's the way of things. An alternate national anthem welcome, or some such.

Also, Summer of '69 is a great karaoke tune for a mid-range female.

Anyway, I love some of Ryan Adams' work, but this cover doesn't do it for me.
posted by weeyin at 8:38 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

Bryan Adams used to be on AllMusic (and, man, remember when AllMusic was a useful, readable site?)

I liked Bryan Adams in the 80s and early 90s; he was everywhere and had some fun songs. It has not occurred to me to list to anything he's done in a long while though.


Ryan Adams is really prolific and I love so much of it but just can't keep up, but I am big fan of his latest album. Of course Bryan had more hook-laden power pop than Ryan but that doesn't mean much to me because they are going for very different things.

Ryan Adams playing his own songs: Stay With Me on ACL. Come Pick Me Up, for KCRW.
posted by mountmccabe at 8:44 AM on April 30, 2015

Reading the previously thread on the 2002 incident has pulled several Bryan Adams songs out of the recesses of my brain. I think I've found like 10 songs I'm going to have to listen (and enjoy the hell out of) to soon lest they fester.
posted by mountmccabe at 8:54 AM on April 30, 2015

lest they fester

...is either a great name for a song or a newspaper-published poem from any point in history between the Revolutionary and First World Wars.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:08 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

Then what??????
Does she get out and run back to him?

You have to watch the rest of the videos for that album. The girl and their relationship runs through them all.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:09 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I will defend Reckless and Cuts Like A Knife as solid, power pop albums. He started doing ballad-y crap around the time of Robin Hood soundtrack, which definitely sucks. Argh, remember that terrible song with Sting and Rod Stewart?

I know a guy named Brian Adams. He has heard the jokes, thank you.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:14 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: the Denpit of Mass Crankyness
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:18 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm still waiting for Boards of Canada to do their own cover.

I got my first real sampler
Filled it up with sounds, and then
Played it till my eardrums bled
It was the summer of sixtyten

posted by xil at 9:26 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

Seems like the emerging consensus is that 80s pop music is some "guilty pleasure" overtalkative drunken middle-aged uncle, covered in tacky-production-value slime and flop sweat, that the preceding and following decades are always trying to push into the basement and shut up.
posted by blucevalo at 9:32 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Bryan Adams said a while ago that the "69" in the song refers to the sexual position, which is weird, doesn't seem to fit the lyrics and gives the whole thing kind of a gross spin. (It was the summer of oral sex...)

I remember hearing him say years ago that it was about the year, and that even though he was too young to have done all that stuff in '69 (He would've been 10) he changed it because it sounded better than the summer of '77. Everything about the song leads me to think that's the truth, and he's misleading us with the sex interpretation. But why would he want to do that?
posted by Ursula Hitler at 9:52 AM on April 30, 2015

When I was in high school and that song was a hit we used the phrase "standin' on your momma's porch" to refer to whatever it was we were doing whenever. So you would call some one up (on a fixed-line phone!) and ask "so whatcha doin'?" and they would invariably say "just standin' on your momma's porch." Even though this was in a place where there were no porches nor any culture of standin' on them. Thanks Bryan!
posted by chavenet at 10:07 AM on April 30, 2015 [8 favorites]

You know, in B. Adams' original version of the song, there's that hooky change that starts "standing on your mother's porch?" Is sort of the chorus but not really the chorus? I think there's a key change? Yeah that part.

Yeah when that part plays, I cry big fat mullet-coifed tears of nostalgia that wear little collared shirts with ripped off sleeves. For summers in the early 80's. There's some sort of meta-nostalgia happening.

Also B. Adams is a major animal rights dude now which kind of ruined my ability to hate him.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:14 AM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was driving the other day when Bryan's version came on the radio. It made me think of the Ryan Adams debacle and then I thought - the dude should play it live sometime for lulz and hipster irony. Thanks for posting this.
posted by Brodiggitty at 10:38 AM on April 30, 2015

there's that hooky change that starts "standing on your mother's porch?" Is sort of the chorus but not really the chorus?

There's no chorus. It's a verse then a refrain, but with the song's title not included in the refrain lyrics, which is unusual in pop. People would have gone into the record shop and asked for 'Best Days of My Life.'
posted by colie at 10:56 AM on April 30, 2015

Bryan Adams said a while ago that the "69" in the song refers to the sexual position, which is weird, doesn't seem to fit the lyrics and gives the whole thing kind of a gross spin. (It was the summer of oral sex...)

I don't think he means the song is actually about that, but rather that it's a bit of Beavis & Butthead heh-heh-he-said-69 "humor" that made him want to sing "Summer of 69" instead of a more age-appropriate "Summer of 79" ('77 is out because it doesn't scan; '76 or '78 would fit, but 'nine' has a better vowel and ending consonant than 'six' or 'eight').
posted by straight at 10:56 AM on April 30, 2015

Poor Ryan. When I first saw this post I assumed it was an "I Am Not Spock" story about Bryan Adams getting over being sick of and refusing to play his most famous hit.
posted by straight at 11:01 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I deeply love "Summer of '69."

In so many ways, high school kind of sucked as an overall experience. But when I hear that song I can put myself in my girlfriend's driveway, and there are a bunch of us there on a random summer Wednesday night, where it's still 80 degrees at 10:00, and the crickets are chirping, and a train is rumbling by way off in the distance, and we are sitting there on the trunk of my giant old Crown Victoria that I got from my grandma, and we are eating tacos and wasting time making dumb jokes, and being young and foolish, and just ruling that tiny kingdom of her suburban cul-de-sac. It seems like we did that every single night.

(And we probably had just been to Blockbuster Video and had spent an hour wandering around but then didn't even get a movie because we owed them $12 from a 3 days late copy of Forrest Gump. Stupid Blockbuster.)

Oh, and I love that he describes his band days as "we tried real hard." Mine did too.
posted by AgentRocket at 11:10 AM on April 30, 2015 [7 favorites]

I remember hearing him say years ago that it was about the year, and that even though he was too young to have done all that stuff in '69 (He would've been 10) he changed it because it sounded better than the summer of '77. Everything about the song leads me to think that's the truth, and he's misleading us with the sex interpretation. But why would he want to do that?

It has nothing to do with sex. It's just supposed to sound right. Jim Vallance helped write the songs, and he became known in the music industry across North America as a "fixer" after he parted ways with Adams in the late 80's (after Into the Fire).

It's important to note that the Bryan Adams that we all love to hate appeared after he broke up his songwriting partnership with Jim Vallance.

For me, Bryan Adams will always be portable cassette recorder boom boxes, Levi's 501 jeans and jean jackets, Adidas Stan Smith shoes, an Ocean Pacific T-Shirt or maybe a shaker-knit sweater, a comb in the back of one's pocket, Sammy Hagar singing on 5150, Classic Coke, 7-11 burgers, going down to the video arcade to play 1942, ninjas, Rambo, the Dolphins, the Bears, Broncos, and 49ers...
posted by Nevin at 11:21 AM on April 30, 2015 [4 favorites]

[rant] I might be in the minority on this one, but I don't have much nostalgia for my teenage years. By a wide margin, it was the most miserable time of my life. I'm not saying that it was relentless torment; there were some good moments and some great friends, and I do remember some of it fondly.

The thing about this song that really grates on me, though, is that it tosses a bunch of mawkish regret on top of those fond memories. It's saying "welp, my adulthood is littered with broken dreams and failed relationships and unfulfilled yearnings! Childhood sure was fun though!" Which is just, damn dude. That's awful. Song just makes me feel icky. [/rant]
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 11:27 AM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

my adulthood is littered with broken dreams and failed relationships and unfulfilled yearnings! Childhood sure was fun though!

The missing chorus is found!
posted by colie at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

I always wondered what that song would be like if it had been written by a black person who grew up in the ghetto.
posted by rankfreudlite at 12:09 PM on April 30, 2015

I might be in the minority on this one, but I don't have much nostalgia for my teenage years.

Surely there must be something salvageable? Like spending a summer afternoon listening to the radio at the beach or something? My middle school years were not ideal - with no exaggeration my school was like something out of the River's Edge - but it wasn't all bad.
posted by Nevin at 12:14 PM on April 30, 2015

My freshman year of college (85) I was a metal head, and my roommate was a new waver. Bryan Adams and The Smithereens were about the only records we could agree on.
posted by COD at 12:26 PM on April 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

I too will admit my love of this song. I am the same age as COD and even at the time it was new it was evocative of a rosy past, which is weird since I was the age the song was singing about being. It's a song recalling the great feeling of being 18 even if, at age 18, you weren't feeling that great.
posted by maxwelton at 12:38 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I got my independence
You want yours from the Ottoman
We offered you our benedictions
Was the summer of 1821

Me and some guys in the Cabinet
Had a country and we tried real hard
Jackson went on to divide the nation
I Shoulda known, it would be a war

Oh where the standard unfurls
Your freedom holds our hearts forever
You’d have it if we had the choice
Yeah, but we go not abroad, yo
In search of monsters to destroy

Ain't no use in complainin'
When you fight for liberty
Enlisting under other banners
Would mire us in your intrigues

Standin' on that foreign soil
Your freedom holds our hearts forever
You’d have it if we had the choice
Yeah, but we go not abroad, yo
In search of monsters to destroy

Oh yeah
Back in the summer of '21
Ohhh
Man we were killin' none
We had a spear and shield, though
Our motto was Freedom, yeah
and Independence, and Peace, yo!

And now the times are changin'
Look at everything that's come along
Sometimes when I read that old speech
I think about the fall of Saigon

Standin' on that foreign soil
You told me it would be the last time
Oh, and when we went to Iran
I knew we’re doomed to repeat the past and
Those were the exact same days as every other fucking day of my life

Oh, yeah
But back in the summer of '21, oh
It was the summer of '21, oh, yeah
Me and Monroe back in '21, oh
It was the summer, the summer, the summer of 1821, yeah

-The Ghost of 1821
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:57 PM on April 30, 2015 [6 favorites]

I do love this song, but more as a guilty pleasure. It's so hooky and well constructed... but when I listen to it, I think, Man, narrator, your life must truly suck if it's all downhill since you were 16 or so. I honestly don't know anyone like that. (Well, maybe there's a few people on Facebook but I don't actually talk to them.) That mindset is so foreign to me it's hard for me to even actually get it.
posted by suburbanbeatnik at 1:00 PM on April 30, 2015

'Ghetto' version of Summer of 69 might be Whitey On The Moon by Gil Scott Heron.
posted by colie at 1:19 PM on April 30, 2015

Like tocts I too was at Oktoberfest in Munich ~10 years ago... and while I didn't hear that song in the tents I do have a related story. During that trip Two friends and I were out shopping during the day. A random stranger approached us and asked if we were American's. When we said we were Canadian we got... "Oh Canadian, like Bryan Adams! Back in the summer of '69..."
posted by cirhosis at 1:28 PM on April 30, 2015

'Glory Days' by Bruce Springsteen has a similarly sadsack narrator. It's not as good a song though. More a rough draft for something it took Bryan (and his songwriting partner) to nail.
posted by Mocata at 1:45 PM on April 30, 2015

I saw Bryan Adams open for The Kinks in 1980 (on the tour that became their One for the Road live album). He did "Lonely Nights."
posted by kirkaracha at 2:03 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

If I'd been in that audience, I would have yelled out, "NOW DO 'HEAVEN'"

I actually like that song. Back at the time I thought it was one of the most romantic songs ever.

Fun fact, it was originally from the soundtrack to a B-movie where Christopher Atkins plays a male stripper.
posted by dnash at 2:07 PM on April 30, 2015

A friend of mine claims he was the guy who yelled out "do Summer of '69" and some other guy overheard, got excited and started yelling it and was then ejected, and my friend got to see the rest of the concert even though he was the guy who started it. I don't know whether or not this is true—he's kind of a jerk and does live in Nashville, so it's plausible, but it's also the kind of thing he would make up for laughs.
posted by joannemerriam at 2:35 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

man, remember when AllMusic was a useful, readable site?

Nope.
posted by hadlexishere at 2:48 PM on April 30, 2015

I was 14 in 1985. I wouldn't call it my peak but it was a pretty damn good year. This song evokes a lot of mostly-good memories. I moved to a new town and met some of my best friends in 1985. I saw Van Halen in 1985. I got my first kiss in 1985. After a very rough childhood, my high school years were free, easy and a lot of fun. I don't spend much time reminiscing about the glory days but I do like talking to younger people about what they think the 80s were like. The things they focus on and omit are interesting. They don't quite get it, just like I'll never get the 60s.
posted by double block and bleed at 3:43 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

Everything about the song leads me to think that's the truth, and he's misleading us with the sex interpretation. But why would he want to do that?

Um, to fuck with us? For the lulz? It's what I would do if I were in his shoes, being asked the same damn question every interview over and over for decades on end.

Prior to this thread I had not realized Bryan Adams was more than a one-hit wonder; I honestly thought "Summer of 69" was the only single he'd ever released. Strange world.

also, my high school years sucked. hard. goddamn. Life really only started to be awesome when I hit 30. I can't relate to this kind of "ahh when I was young" nostalgia at all, because being young was terrible.

posted by Mars Saxman at 3:47 PM on April 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was 14 in 1985. I wouldn't call it my peak but it was a pretty damn good year. This song evokes a lot of mostly-good memories. I moved to a new town and met some of my best friends in 1985. I saw Van Halen in 1985.

Would that have been for the 1984 tour? As I recall, 5150 didn't come out until 1986. I traveled to Vancouver with my friend to see VH for that tour, and after I got to meet Michael Anthoy and Alex Van Halen at the Four Seasons... by coincidence.

'Glory Days' by Bruce Springsteen has a similarly sadsack narrator. It's not as good a song though. More a rough draft for something it took Bryan (and his songwriting partner) to nail.

The whole "Born in the USA" cassette was awesome back in the day. There's something about Springsteen's approach that reminded me of Stephen King, who I was also getting into at the time.

1984/85 was an awesome time for music. ZZ Top Eliminator, Michael Jackson Thriller, Born in the USA, Reckless, Powerslave, Ratt Out of the Cellar, Purple Rain, Yes 90125, John Mellencamp Scarecrow, the Cars Drive, Cyndi Lauper...

A watershed time, really.

Like I said, I didn't have a great time in junior high (I had to change schools, and my second school was better), but there were some good times in there. I mean, how awesome is summer if you don't have to work and you don't have be at home and have a "portable cassette player" (I never had a Walkman)?
posted by Nevin at 4:16 PM on April 30, 2015

Nevin: "Would that have been for the 1984 tour?"

Wikipedia says it was April 22, 1986, so I was off by a year. Memories get fuzzy after 30 years or so. My first kiss was definitely 1985. I'll never forget that.
posted by double block and bleed at 4:34 PM on April 30, 2015 [1 favorite]

I honestly thought "Summer of 69" was the only single he'd ever released. Strange world.

Go listen to "Take Me back" which is a great bar band song.
posted by jonmc at 5:01 PM on April 30, 2015

Cuts Like a Knife is a pretty awesome song. It's also totally Vancouver in the early 80's, when Vancouver still had a laid-back, Bee Cee rain coast vibe.
posted by Nevin at 5:29 PM on April 30, 2015

Glory Days.

For a cover of that one that beats the original, check out Basia Bulat.
posted by anothermug at 8:23 PM on April 30, 2015

If he sings Crowded House too then I'll be listening.
posted by waving at 8:26 AM on May 1, 2015

Prior to this thread I had not realized Bryan Adams was more than a one-hit wonder; I honestly thought "Summer of 69" was the only single he'd ever released. Strange world.

Paraphrasing WikiPedia: That song he wrote for the Robin Hood movie is one of the best-selling singles of all time. Outsold Smells Like Teen Spirit (they came out the same year). He's been nominated for 56 Junos, 15 Grammys, 3 Oscars, and 5 Golden Globes. He's ranked 38th on the list of All-Time top artists in the Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 5:38 PM on May 1, 2015