Still trying really hard? Trying really hard again?

May 22, 2024 9:07 AM

4Most, the smalltown band that inspired Summer of '69, is reuniting.
posted by jacquilynne (16 comments total)

What a lovely story! Rock on, all of you...
posted by chavenet at 9:11 AM on May 22

If you ever see Eef Barzelay of Clem Snide perform, he does a version where he takes the R-rated suppositions people make based on the title and makes them hilariously, egregiously literal.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:11 AM on May 22 [3 favorites]

Bryan Adams was eight years old in the summer of '69.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 9:22 AM on May 22 [2 favorites]

he didn't write the lyrics.
posted by philip-random at 9:29 AM on May 22 [6 favorites]

Still trying really hard? Trying really hard again?

Hardly tryin'!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:53 AM on May 22

Bryan Adams is an acclaimed portrait photographer these days. (previously)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:59 AM on May 22

The photo of the Tremolones performing in the backs of pickup trucks is so charming!
posted by Sauce Trough at 10:31 AM on May 22

Summer of '85 I was very irritated by this song since, a JSCS points out, Bryan Adams was clearly too young to be telling the story. Then someone suggested that the year was double entendre, and I was all :-0
posted by bendybendy at 10:40 AM on May 22

There's kind of a long-running thing where Adams and Vallance claim different meanings for the song, but I have to admit, I find Vallance's a whole lot more believable than that they wrote an entire song in order to get in one not terribly funny double entendre but didn't bury any anywhere else in the song.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:45 AM on May 22 [4 favorites]

Wow. My grandparents lived in Vanderhoof. I grew up about an hour away and we visited often (as well as playing in high school tournaments at NVSS). I had no idea of the local connection.
posted by synecdoche at 10:46 AM on May 22

I went to high school with a guy named Bryan Adams who eventually became a professional musician as the bandleader to his own third wave ska band. He absolutely had to change his name or he would have gotten drunk fratboys yelling "Summer of '69" at him for the rest of his life.
posted by jonp72 at 11:06 AM on May 22 [2 favorites]

I enjoy needling my brother by intentionally mixing up Ryan Adams with Bryan Adams

I appreciated this post; I *never* understood how Bryan Adams was singing about being a teenager-ish in 1969, but to realize that the cowriter was a bit older clears it up.
posted by dismas at 11:13 AM on May 22 [1 favorite]

I enjoy needling my brother by intentionally mixing up Ryan Adams with Bryan Adams

The former sure doesn't find that funny
posted by gottabefunky at 11:22 AM on May 22 [1 favorite]

The former sure doesn't find that funny

Oh my, Ryan covers Bryan at the Ryman. Whew!
posted by thecincinnatikid at 11:46 AM on May 22

This is so fun and I bet it will be a total blast for Vallance's less-famous bandmates. I hope the media interest helps them raise a whole bunch of money for the scholarship.

(The Ryan-covers-Bryan merited an FPP in 2015. I wrote a little appreciation in that thread of the super-specific memories that song invokes, especially as a member of a high school band that tried real hard.)
posted by AgentRocket at 12:01 PM on May 22

He absolutely had to change his name or he would have gotten drunk fratboys yelling "Summer of '69" at him for the rest of his life.

Or he could have just played a ska version of it. Confused fratboys is a good thing.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:13 PM on May 22 [1 favorite]