At the time of writing Summer of '69, describe your relationship with Bryan Adams.

It was January 1984. Bryan had just finished a 283-day tour. "Cuts Like A Knife" had sold more than a million copies, and other recording artists were starting to ask us for material. There was a lot of momentum, and we were "fired up" about writing songs.

You describe the song as a 50/50 co-write with Bryan Adams. Does that mean the music and lyrics were shared?

Just about everything Bryan and I wrote was a 50/50 split, with equal input on music and lyrics. We'd sit across from each other with our guitars and hammer out a chord progression and melody -- that was the easy part -- then we'd jump into "lyric hell" for a day or two. Writing lyrics was always a chore. I still hate it.

What was the initial spark?

I can't speak for Bryan, but for me, right from the opening line it was obvious we were writing about our past ... our first guitar, our first band, that kind of thing. The song was a mixture of nostalgia and autobiography, so we drew from our own experiences. Drive-ins were a big part of growing up in the '60s, and every little town had a "Five-and-Dime". We put our note-pads down and just talked for a while, about bands we'd been in, about getting a guitar for Christmas, stuff like that.

It was originally going to be titled "Best Days of My Life." At what point did that change, and why?

The title is the most important part of a song ... you should be able to hear a song once, and know what it's called. "Best Days of My Life" was a good title, it summarized what the song was about, but "Summer of '69" was better. The song was already finished when we decided to change the title. We literally "shoe-horned" the new title into a few gaps in the lyric.

In hindsight, you explain that some lyrics may have been inspired, consciously or not, by other artists -- Foreigner, Springsteen. Was there any sense of that at the time?

Bryan and I were both listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen at the time. There are a couple of references to "porches" in Bruce's song "Thunder Road", which may have inspired our line about "standing on your momma's porch". Also, a friend of mine, Chuck, had a job at the railway yard back in '65, so after the lyric "Jimmy quit and Jody got married" I suggested: "I got a job at the railway yard". I thought it worked quite well ... in fact, that line stayed in the song right up to the final draft, right before going into the studio. In the end, Bryan thought the "railway" thing sounded a bit too much like Springsteen, so we dumped it.

When we look back now, that song seemed to last forever. How do you feel about it today?

I have a real fondness for "Summer of '69". I think it's one of the better songs Adams and I wrote. It's not art, but it's well crafted, and I'm proud of that. Twenty years later it still gets the biggest reaction at Bryan's concerts.


This interview was done with Liisa Ladouceur in January 2004 and published in March 2004.