{"id":627861,"date":"2026-04-25T14:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627861\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T14:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T14:31:11","slug":"i-still-think-its-a-great-lyric-probably-the-best-ive-ever-written-those-first-four-lines-are-the-most-memorable-in-my-entire-catalogue-the-classic-80s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/627861\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI still think it\u2019s a great lyric. Probably the best I\u2019ve ever written. Those first four lines are the most memorable in my entire catalogue\u201d: The classic \u201980s rock anthem and the \u201970s hit that inspired it"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1981, after his debut album had flopped, Bryan Adams joked about naming his second album Bryan Adams Hasn\u2019t Heard Of You Either. But four years later he had one of the biggest selling albums of the \u201980s in Reckless \u2013 and among its many hit singles was the classic rock anthem Summer Of \u201969.<\/p>\n

Originally titled Those Were The Best Days Of My Life, the song was inspired by a great American rock hit from 1976, Bob Seger\u2019s Night Moves.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s such a brilliant song,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIt always pissed me off that I didn\u2019t write it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Speaking to Classic Rock magazine, Adams praised the lyrics in Night Moves, in which Seger portrayed adolescent rites of passage, with images of cars and girls and long, hot summers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a nostalgic song,\u201d Adams said. \u201cRomantic. Teenage blues, that awkwardness of trying to figure out sexuality \u2013 it\u2019s all there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was exactly what Adams himself delivered in Summer Of \u201969 \u2013 beginning with four lines of which he\u2019s especially proud: \u201cI got my first real six-string\/Bought it at the five and dime\/Played it \u2019til my fingers bled\/Was the summer of \u201969.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think it\u2019s a great lyric,\u201d Adams said an interview with Vox magazine. \u201cProbably the best I\u2019ve ever written. Those first four lines are probably the most memorable in my entire catalogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As for the song\u2019s title, it was a rude joke that stuck. \u201cI always got a laugh out of it,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Bryan Adams – Summer Of 69 (Official Music Video) – YouTube
\n\"Bryan<\/p>\n

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For Adams, it was important that this and other key tracks on Reckless had the energy and vibe of a live performance. To that end, when recording began in March 1984 at Little Mountain studios in Vancouver, he cut most of the tracks \u2018as live\u2019 with his touring band \u2013 lead guitarist Keith Scott, bassist Dave Taylor and keyboard player Tommy Mandel \u2013 plus session drummer Mickey Curry.<\/p>\n

However, when operations moved to New York City and The Power Station \u2013 the famous recording studio on West 53rd Street in Manhattan \u2013 Adams told his producer Bob Clearmountain that something was missing. He couldn\u2019t quite figure out what the problem was until he played a few tracks to his manager Bruce Allen.<\/p>\n

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Allen\u2019s verdict was straight to the point: \u201cWhere\u2019s the rock?\u201d<\/p>\n

The very next day, Adams flew back to Vancouver and hooked up with Jim Valance, the co-writer of every track on Reckless and pretty much every other song Adams had recorded up to that point.<\/p>\n

His instruction to Vallance was simple: \u201cWe need to pump up the volume on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair worked to toughen up Summer Of \u201969 and another song, One Night Love Affair. They then wrote a new song from scratch \u2013 a song that answered Bruce Allen\u2019s question in the most emphatic fashion. Its title: Kids Wanna Rock.<\/p>\n

The inspiration for Kids Wanna Rock came to Vallance in a moment of evangelical fervour after he and Adams had attended a concert by synth-pop boffin Thomas Dolby.<\/p>\n

As Adams recalled: \u201cAfter that show, Jim was so emphatic about the fact that people just weren\u2019t getting into the keyboard thing. Jim\u2019s a rocker, man, and he wasn\u2019t gonna have it. He just said: \u2018The kids wanna rock!\u2019 And I thought that was so funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryan Adams – Kids Wanna Rock – YouTube
\n\"Bryan<\/p>\n

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With the addition of Kids Wanna Rock and re-recorded versions of Summer Of \u201969 and One Night Love Affair, the Reckless album was completed in August 1984.<\/p>\n

Jim Vallance told Classic Rock: \u201cIn Bryan\u2019s career, up to Reckless, each album had done better than the one before. I was confident Reckless would do better than [1983 album] Cuts Like A Knife. I just wasn\u2019t prepared for how much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reckless went to No 1 in Canada, New Zealand and the US. Incredibly, six singles from the album made the US top 15 \u2013 a feat previously achieved only by Michael Jackson with Thriller and Bruce Springsteen with Born In The USA.<\/p>\n

Summer Of \u201969 peaked at No 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. And just like Bob Seger’s Night Moves, it’s a song that never gets old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1981, after his debut album had flopped, Bryan Adams joked about naming his second album Bryan Adams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-627861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}