Summer of '69
by Bryan Adams
- 136
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 51
- Danceability
- 2
- Acousticness
Recording sessions for "Summer of '69" took place in March and April 1984 at Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, engineered by Bob Clearmountain. Clearmountain mixed it in September at the Power Station in New York City. Bryan Adams and Clearmountain produced it, with Jim Vallance as associate producer. The lineup was Adams on rhythm guitar, Keith Scott on lead guitar, Dave Taylor on bass, Pat Steward on drums and Vallance on percussion. The thick guitar sound came from recording the same guitar part twice. An opening riff on a twelve-string guitar gave way to one on a six-string.
Adams and Vallance wrote it in January 1984 in West Vancouver. Adams called it the hardest song to write and produce for the album Reckless. It went through more revisions than any other track. One version with entirely different lyrics was discarded, and the song was nearly left off. Vallance first proposed the title "The Best Days of My Life." The phrase "summer of '69" had appeared in early drafts because it rhymed with "five and dime."
A&M Records released it on May 27, 1985, as the fourth single from Reckless. It peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100. Steve Barron directed the video.
Summer of '69 runs at 136 BPM, the tempo of techno, trance and big-room dance. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.76 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 441 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
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