Arranged by Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams. Produced by Bob Clearmountain and Bryan Adams. Associate producer, Jim Vallance. Recorded by Bob Clearmountain, March/April 1984, at Little Mountain Sound, Vancouver. Mixed by Bob Clearmountain, September 1984, at the Power Station, New York.

This is a simple song that doesn't require much comment. For the most part it's a "relationship" lyric, although the second verse is (inexplicably) about the First World War -- i.e. the futility of sending thousands of men running across an open field, directly into enemy machine-gun fire, in the hope that a few of them might make it to the other side and win the battle. This is actually how much of the 1914-1918 European war was fought, and it's how my grandmother's brother died (see Remembrance Day).

         When you're out on the front line
         And you're watchin' them fall
         It doesn't take long to realize
         It ain't worth fighting' for

Adams and I are both interested in First World War history (Bryan's grandfather served with the British Army in WW1).  As a result, lyrical references to the war occasionally appear in our songwriting. It's not always in context, and it doesn't always make sense, but there it is!

The first verse of "Somebody" is about the customers I would see when I was playing drums six-nights-a-week in nightclubs in the 1970's.

         And the winners are losers
         You see it every night

It was pathetic, really. You'd see the same people every night of the week, drinking and dancing and hoping to meet someone to go home with. I used to sit behind my drum kit, look out at the audience, and watch the whole thing unfold like a bad movie.  In my mind, the "winners" -- the ones who found someone to go home with -- were really the "losers".

In 1989 we donated our royalties from "Somebody" to the Greenpeace organization. The song appeared on the double-CD "Breakthrough", with revenues directed to help Greenpeace open offices in Moscow and Kiev.

The CD was released in the Soviet Union on March 6, 1989.  In addition to Bryan, the album also included recordings by The Pretenders, U2, Sting, Peter Gabriel and others. 

Re-titled "Rainbow Warrior", the album was released in the USA and Canada on May 23, 1989.