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, Dave Snell on bass, and me on drums. We played local dances and parties until 1967 when my family moved to Terrace.

Within days of arriving in Terrace I found two other musicians at school and we formed a three-piece group. By this time I was 15. Guitarist Howard Froese was 13 and bassist Alex "Bushy" Inselberg was 16.

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 ...

I was at Howard's house one day that summer -- July 20, 1969 to be exact. Along with Howard's mom the three of us 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.

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!

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:

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.

Bryan's first band was called "Shock". In the mid-1970s they played Top-40 songs in Vancouver nightclubs. Bryan was 16.

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. 

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. He 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. He 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 thing, 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 yard" topic ...

Chuck was 21 years old at the time. He's now 80 (yes, time flies)! I recently asked him to elaborate, to tell me more about that summer job.

Here's what he wrote to me:

"I was using a  T-stand made from 2x12 wood, to lever raw planed lumber (up to 40' long) off highboys or pup-trailers (from Ft. St. James) 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".

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 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 ...