I got my first real six-string - bought it at the five and dime

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1985 : Summer Of '69 - Bryan Adams

This is an interesting one - I like it, but I don't even remember it being a single over here, so once again I'm intrigued as to how it took the year.  And once again, I'm expecting not to make any progress in finding out why...

It's 3:36 of rock and roll - short and sweet, baby.  It has one thing it wants to do and it pretty much does it (like most of the tracks on Reckless, but this is a high point for me).  The video has Bryan relaxing in a hammock talking to his therapist whilst black and white flashbacks show us what young Bryan got up to back in the summer of '69.  Much high jinks and tomfoolery went on, I can tell you - the police were even called at one point!  But then, it turns out that Bryan still is in a band and they all get together to jam - whooda thought it?!?

All of which is incredibly cheesy and must have taken them about three seconds to write - which makes the last ten seconds of the video all the more intriguing.  The love interest from back in the day is in a car which drives past the band and she sees them and has a little smile remembering the good old days.  "Who was that?" says the driver (who we're obviously supposed to assume is her current partner/husband) - "Nobody" she says with a wry shake of her head.  

Which is quite a nice ending - which makes the last five seconds of the video all the more intriguing!  "I SAID 'Who was that?'" shouts the husband in a controlling manner as he slams on the brakes and the car screeches to a halt - and we fade to black.  Who expected that kind of drama!?!

Wikipedia has a lot on the track - most of which makes it clear that Canada REALLY likes this track.  Bryan wrote the track with his long-standing writing partner Jim Vallance and it sounds like the song went through a load of different iterations before they were happy with it.  They also disagree as to whether the song is all about sex or not, with Bryan claiming it totally is (but I suspect he's just showing off).  

The critics actually made a couple of sensible comments about it, with Cash Box saying it "recalls the sound and arrangement of Springsteen with Adams’ own streamlined sheen" and Blender saying it "made people who hadn't yet had either a first love or a first band nostalgic for the experience".

It actually was a single over here and Wikipedia also claims that "in the UK it was acclaimed as one of Adams’s best" - which is all well and good but it only got to #42 upon its initial release and #54, #180 and #88 in '06-'08 (for no obvious reason).  Unsurprisingly, it did better across the Atlantic getting to #5 in the US, but only #11 in Canada (so they weren't THAT pleased with it).  However, when we look at the actual sales numbers, Wikipedia gives us 1.6 million for the US and 1.8 million for the UK - the only vague hint about this is that the Official Chart Company over here has included it on a list of popular summer songs.  I guess we just like it - and I've got no problems with that.

Wikipedia gives us no cover versions, but secondhandsongs.com does come up with Bowling For Soup (which adds nothing to the original), DJ Otzi (which murders the original in EXACTLY the way you'd imagine) and a load of other people I've never heard of - YouTube also gives us an X-Factor version from VERY young One Direction (it's not great, but it's funny).  I also have to include this version which I found with some random Googling - it's Chesney Hawkes, backed by Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox dressed as dinosaurs (it has absolutely no musical merit, but it's pretty funny).

I don't really understand it, but I feel I'm happy enough that this won the year - although I'm expecting some pretty strong competition.  The best selling songs of the year were a surprisingly female-heavy selection of Jennifer Rush's "The Power Of Love", Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson's "I Know Him So Well", Madonna's "Into The Groove", Paul Hardcastle's "19" and Sister Sledge's "Frankie" - I'm not sure I'd have guessed any of them as potential best-sellers.

Other tracks that jump out of the charts for me this year are Prince's "1999" and "Little Red Corvette", King's "Love & Pride" (I loved that song!), Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark", "I'm On Fire" and "Born In The USA", Kirsty MacColl's "A New England", Madonna's "Material Girl", Tears For Fears's "Everybody Wants To Rule The World", Simple Minds's "Don't You Forget About Me" and "Alive And Kicking", Marillion's "Kayleigh", Katrina & The Waves's "Walking On Sunshine", Eurythmics "There Must Be An Angel", Dire Straits's "Money For Nothing" (this feels it must have been close to the top), Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" (I'm quite surprised this didn't take the year after Stranger Things got involved), David Bowie & Mick Jagger's "Dancing In The Streets", Red Box's "Lean On Me", A-ha's "Take On Me", Talking Heads's "Road To Nowhere", Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love", Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin's "Separate Lives" and Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls".  Phew - what a list!  With some belters on it as well.

The best selling song in the US in 1985 was George Michael's "Careless Whisper" (he has four tracks in the top 100) but that came out in '84 - as did #2-#6 on the list, so the highest selling track from '85 on the list is actually Tears For Fears "Everybody Wants...", followed by Dire Straits's "Money For Nothing".  A lot of the list looks very similar to the tracks listed above - there wasn't a lot of divergence this year between the two countries record-buying habits.

There are tracks from the year I prefer, but I'm happy enough for Bryan to take the year - it's a well-constructed track that does indeed make me nostalgic for the first band I was never in.  And it's considerably better than the other track that he might have taken a year with...

1984 - Not even close to being George's best track of even that year
1986 - Good song, bad hair