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Summer of '69 | ||||||||||||
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| Recording Artist: | Bryan Adams | ||||||||||||
| Writers: | Jim Vallance Bryan Adams |
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| Date Written: | January 1984 / West Vancouver, Canada | ||||||||||||
| Albums: | Reckless (A&M Records, 1984) Live Live Live (A&M Records, 1988) So Far So Good (A&M Records, 1993) Bryan Adams Unplugged (A&M Records, 1997) The Best Of Me (A&M Records, 1999) Anthology (A&M Records, 2005) Icon (Universal, 2010) Bare Bones (2010) Reckless - 30th Anniversary Edition (November 2014) |
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| Spotify Streams: | More than 1.5 billion streams -- 1,516,657,514 as of September 2025 | ||||||||||||
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| Charts: | #5 - Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart / August 1985 (17 weeks on the chart) #5 - Netherlands / 1990 #12 - The Record (Canada) / October 7, 1985 (17 weeks on the chart) #40 - Billboard Top Rock Tracks Chart / 1984 (8 weeks on the chart) #42 - UK Charts / August 1985 (7 weeks on the chart) |
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| Awards: | 1985 - BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) Citation of Achievement for U.S. radio airplay 1986 - Procan Award (Performing Rights Organization of Canada) for Canadian radio airplay 2000 - Socan Classics Award for more than 100,000 Canadian radio performances |
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| Audio: | |||||||||||||
Bryan Adams: rhythm guitar, vocals Keith Scott: lead guitar Dave Taylor: bass Pat Steward: drums Jim Vallance: percussion |
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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. |
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| Cover Versions: | Also recorded by Bowling For Soup, DJ Otzi, Emily's Toybox, Janet Theory, Jive Bunny, MxPx, Catherine Porter, John H featuring Barfalk, WC Experience |
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| Comments: | I can't speak for Bryan -- he has his own thoughts on this -- but my contribution to "Summer of '69" was inspired by two years (1965 and 1969) and two Canadian towns (Vanderhoof and Terrace). My first band was formed in Vanderhoof in 1965. I was 13. The other fellows were a few years older: Wayne Deorksen, Gordon Keith and Chuck Davies on guitar and Dave Snell on bass. I played drums. Most weekends we performed at local dances and parties until 1967 when my family moved to Terrace. |
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Occasionally we'd be joined by Don Parmenter on keyboards and John Webster on second guitar -- and for a while, Marc LeChasseur on vocals -- but mostly it was just the three of us: me, Howard and Alex. Our repertoire was mainly drawn from Cream and Hendrix records. By the summer of 1969 we had developed considerably as musicians. We even took a stab at writing our own songs. By far, Howard was the most talented among us. At the age of 19 he auditioned for, and joined the popular Canadian group "Chilliwack", contributing guitar, keyboards and backing vocals to several of their 1970's albums. But I'm getting ahead of the story ... |
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I was at Howard's house one day that summer -- July 20, 1969 to be exact. Me, Howard, and Howard's watched the moon landing "live" on their little B&W television. Then in August 1969 we heard about a mammoth music festival in Bethel NY called "Woodstock". A film documentary would soon follow. |
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| So if anyone asks about the song "Summer of '69" -- if they want to know what the song is really about -- the answer is ... (wait for it) ... it's about the summer of 1969! | ||||
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| Of all the songs I've written or co-written, "Summer of '69" is the one that most people seem to know. We wrote most of the song in January 1984 ... by which I mean, we started writing it then, but we didn't finish it right away. During the next month or two the song went through a number of musical and lyrical changes. It wasn't even called "Summer of '69" at first, that was just a line of lyric in the first verse, nothing special (see below). The song was very much a 50-50 collaboration ... me and Bryan in my basement studio, bouncing ideas back and forth. We'd leave it for a week or two, then we'd go back and work on it some more, never sure if we'd got it right, or if it was strong enough to include on Bryan's "Reckless" album. As mentioned above, Bryan has his own memories regarding the song and how it came together, but here's what I remember about my inspiration for "Summer Of '69", line by line ... |
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I got my first real six string | |||
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Bought it at the "Five and Dime" | |||
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| When I was growing up in the 1950's and 60's there were shops called "Five and Dime" where you could (supposedly) buy anything for five or ten cents, which wasn't always true. Now they're called "Dollar Stores"! Contrary to what the lyrics say, my first guitar wasn't purchased at the "Five and Dime", but rather it was a gift from my parents, Christmas 1965, when I was thirteen. Bryan's first guitar was a replica Fender Stratocaster, purchased in a music shop in England. Here's a quote (courtesy of MusicNews.com) from a 2025 interview Bryan did on Chris Difford's "I Never Thought It Would Happen" podcast: |
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| Adams reveals his first real six string was actually purchased in a music shop in Reading, UK, when he was 12. And instead of the Summer of 69, it was bought in 1970. His family moved a lot as a child due to his father working for the Canadian embassy, and after Reading, they moved to Israel. Here he left the guitar with a neighbour and decades later got an email from someone saying they ‘had his first guitar’. He replied and never heard back, but over ten years later someone walked up to him in a club in Berlin and said ‘I've got your first guitar’. The stranger explained that he was the friend of the person who emailed Adams, but he unfortunately died in a plane crash. The guitar was left to him, and aware of his late friend’s desire to reunite it with Bryan, had tracked him down. Bryan has owned the guitar ever since. |
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Played it 'til my fingers bled | |||
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| Anyone who's played a guitar knows the strings can shred your fingers when you're first learning. I played my new guitar all Christmas day 1965, and continued until late that night. I remember my dad knocking on my bedroom door about one o'clock in the morning, saying "Go to sleep ... you're keeping everyone up!". | ||||
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It was the summer of '69 | |||
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| This is where the phrase "summer of '69" appears for the first time, line #4 of the first verse. Nothing special, just another line of lyric that conveniently rhymes with "five and dime", two lines earlier. My point is: in our first few drafts of the song, the lyric "summer of '69" appears only once, never to be repeated! The song wasn't even called "Summer of '69" ... it was called "Best Days Of My Life". In fact, "Best Days Of My Life" very nearly became the title of the song! |
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Me and some guys from school | |
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Had a band and we tried real hard | |
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My first band, "The Tremelones", was formed in 1965 in Vanderhoof Canada. The photo (right) was taken at the Vanderhoof Community Centre, my first ever "paying" gig. I couldn't believe it, we actually got paid to play music ... $2.50 each, for the evening! There were a few different line-ups, but for the most part it was Wayne Deorksen and Gordy Keith on guitars and me on drums. Gordy's friend Dave Snell played bass with us for a while. He ordered a Silvertone bass guitar and amplifier from the Sears catalogue, but he never became fully proficient. We changed our name to The Fourmost when my neighbour Chuck Davies joined the band. Chuck was really old (twenty-one), plus he'd recently traveled to England, so he had instant credibility! Chuck had an electric guitar with a silver sparkle finish and a Fender amp! None of us could sing, so we mostly played instrumentals by The Ventures and The Shadows. "Walk Don't Run", "Wipeout", "Perfidia" and "Apache" were some of our staples. Before joining The Tremelones I spent many lunch-hours in the school music room with Alan "Whitty" Whitmore. Whitty is the first musician I ever played with, and I have very fond memories of those mid-day "jam sessions". Lacking a drum kit of my own, I would pound on the school band's snare drum and cymbal while Whitty played his electric guitar through a small amp. When the music room was occupied, we'd practice in the school library, which was vacant for the lunch hour. This annoyed my French teacher, Mrs. Morrissey, whose classroom was directly across the hallway. |
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In a mean-spirited attempt to enlist my parents and shut me down, Mrs. Morrissey put a less-than-helpful comment in my report card: "Jim's mind is never on the job. He can't just drum his life away". |
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| I can't blame her for trying, but to my parents' credit, it didn't work. I did drum my life away! |
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Jimmy quit and Jody got married | |||||
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I'm not sure where Bryan got the name "Jimmy" -- we didn't discuss it at the time -- but in a subsequent interview he said it was a reference to one of his early drummers. "Jody" refers to Bryan's sound-man and tour manager, Jody Perpik, who got married around the same time we were working on the lyrics for the song. In fact, Jody and his wife appear in Bryan's video for "Summer Of '69", driving away with a "Just Married" sign on the back of their car. |
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I shoulda known we'd never get far | |
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At this point in crafting our "story" I was sitting across from Bryan. We both had pens and note-pads, and I suggested the lyric "I got a job at the railway yard", because that's what my band-mate Chuck had done ... Chuck had a temporary job one summer, loading lumber onto box-cars at the Vanderhoof railway yard. Brutal, hard work. He earned $110 for the week -- a huge amount back then. Chuck spent the entire $110 on a wrist-watch, because he "wanted something to show for all his hard work". Anyway, the "railway" lyric survived the first two-or-three drafts of the song, but in the end Bryan thought it sounded too much like something Bruce Springsteen would sing and the idea was scrapped. Songwriting is a collaborative effort, lots of give-and-take. Sometimes you have to let the other guy win. But I wish I'd fought harder and kept that lyric! While we're still on the "railway" topic ... "I was using a T-stand made from 2x12 wood, to lever raw planed lumber (up to 40' long) off highboys or pup-trailers into boxcars destined mostly for the US, through the side doors. There was another guy in the boxcar to arrange them neatly as I levered them in. The lumber was all sizes ... 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 2x10 ... depending on what the mill up at Tezzeron was producing that day. The 2x12s were of course the most challenging, quite heavy". |
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Oh, when I look back now that summer seemed to last forever | |
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And if I had the choice I'd always want to be there | |
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| In 1969 there were brand new vinyl releases from Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Chicago, Cream, Creedence Clearwater, The Band, Santana, The Who, Joe Cocker, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Procol Harem, and Led Zeppelin -- and two new Beatle albums: Yellow Submarine and Abbey Road. How amazing is that? | ||
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Those were the best days of my life | |
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| As mentioned above, "Best Days Of My Life" was our original title ... and it nearly became the permanent title of the song! In our first few drafts of the song, the phrase "best days of my life" appears seven times, while the phrase "summer of '69" appears only once. By the time we recorded our final home-studio draft, "best days of my life" had been demoted, appearing only three times, while the phrase "summer of '69" now appeared five times ... a much better title! No other changes were made to the lyric . We were confident we'd told the story we wanted to tell: first guitars, first bands, first girlfriends ... a fun summer many years ago. |
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Ain't no use in complainin' when you got a job to do | |
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| When we wrote the above line, I was thinking about Chuck and his job at the railway yard. Bryan was probably thinking about his stint as a dishwasher at the Tomahawk Restaurant in North Vancouver. | ||
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Spent my evenin's down at the drive-in, and that's when I met you | |
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| There aren't many drive-ins left, and I wonder if kids these days even know what they are? When I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s there were two kinds of drive-ins: (1). big outdoor movie screens, and ... (2). drive-in restaurants that served burgers and soda while you sat in your car, like in the film "American Graffiti". Drive-in's are pretty much gone now, but I have fond memories of going to both of them when I was young. |
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| "Dog n Suds" Drive-In Restaurant Terrace, British Columbia, Canada Winter 1968-69 |
Chilliwack Drive-In Theatre Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada Autumn 1954 (Norman Williams photo) |
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Standin' on your mama's porch, you told me that you'd wait forever | |
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Oh and when you held my hand, I knew that it was now or never | |
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| I was thinking about Betty when we wrote these lines. Betty was a year older than me -- 16 to my 15. She was my first real love. We kept in touch over the years. Sadly, Betty passed away from cancer in her 50s. Betty had an older brother, Murray. He was smart, curious, well-read ... a big thinker in a small town. For some reason Murray deemed 15-year-old "me" worthy of his time. To quote the Canadian author and motivational speaker Bob Proctor: "A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you". Murray introduced me to poetry, literature and so much more. He was generous and patient. I learned so much from him. When I look back on my life, there are a handful of people who shaped and influenced me in a significant way. Murray is top of the list. He taught me to rebel without being disrespectful, to disagree without being disagreeable, to challenge myself and others, and to believe that anything is possible. He also introduced me to a lot of great music, including Leonard Cohen, The Byrds and the early recordings of Bob Dylan. Thank you Murray! |
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Those were the best days of my life | |
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Back in the summer of '69 | |
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| Once we'd decided "Summer Of '69" was a better title than "Best Days Of My Life", we had to find a way to reinforce the phrase. The most obvious way was to repeat it a few more times ... so, we shoe-horned the lyric "Summer Of '69" into a number of gaps in the song. | ||
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Man we were killin' time, we were young and restless, we needed to unwind | |
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I guess nothin' can last forever | |
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| At this point the song goes into an electric twelve-string guitar break, a nod to The Beatles ("Ticket To Ride"), The Byrds ("Tambourine Man"), The Searchers ("Needles And Pins") and We Five ("You Were On My Mind") -- some of my favourite records from the 1960's. | ||
| On our very first basement demo of "Summer of '69" we started the song with the 12-string riff, exactly like the "break down" section in the middle of the song ... however, on subsequent demo recordings we replaced the 12-string intro with a chunky 6-string, and that's how it stayed. In fact, we toiled over the musical arrangement for several weeks, maybe months. We recorded the song three or four different ways in my basement studio, and we still weren't convinced we'd got it right! Bryan even considered dropping the song from the Reckless album, and I agreed. We didn't think it was ready! More work needed. Now, more than 40 years later, when I hear "Summer of '69" on the car radio I can't remember what we didn't like about it!?! |
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| Lyrics: |
I got my first real six-string Bought it at the "Five and Dime" Played it 'til my fingers bled It was the summer of '69 Me and some guys from school Had a band and we tried real hard Jimmy quit and Jody got married I shoulda known we'd never get far Oh when I look back now That summer seemed to last forever And if I had the choice Ya - I'd always wanna be there Those were the best days of my life Ain't no use in complainin' When you've got a job to do Spent my evenin's down at the drive-in And that's when I met you Standin' on your mama's porch You told me that you'd wait forever Oh and when you held my hand I knew that it was now or never Those were the best days of my life Back in the summer of '69 Man we were killin' time We were young and restless We needed to unwind I guess nothin' can last forever - forever, no And now the times are changin' Look at everything that's come and gone Sometimes when I play that old six-string I think about ya wonder what went wrong Standin' on your mama's porch You told me it would last forever Oh the way you held my hand I knew that it was now or never Those were the best days of my life Back in the summer of '69 ... |
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