BACK IN THE SUMMER OF _____(insert year or sexual activity of choice)

My fellow blogger, Kat, over at Culture Clips for Gen-Xers did a post yesterday (Sunday, Sept 14) about a fave movie of hers from 1969 – The James Bond flick, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I responded with a couple of movie titles I recall from the same year, in different genres. Everybody has their own preferences, but what Kat’s post really made me think of is the Bryan Adams song, “Summer of 69.” Only whenever I listen to it, I’m mentally thinking “the summer of 65” since that was my senior year in High School, and really was one of the best times I ever had.

Since I like the song so much, I thought I’d feature it here at Papa Do Run. Why not – I mean, even if it was released in 1984, it’s about the joys of the vintage year 1969, right? Wrong. Well, sort of wrong. Let me be the first to admit that ever since I first heard this hard-rockin’ little tune, I have not doubted for a moment that it was about looking back to the good old days (and any numerical reference to anything else was purely coincidental). Never mind the fact that Bryan Adams was born in 1959, and thus would have been only 10 years old – if we are to think of this song as in any sense autobiographical, that is. Next, I decided to check out good old Wikipedia and see what they had to say. To my surprise, I discovered that this song that I have loved for over 20 years is not actually about the year 69. No, my friends, it’s actually about…ahem…that numerical coincidence after all…you know, the other definition. At least that's what Bryan Adams says he meant by it. Hoo-kay. But, my friends, Bryan Adams isn’t the sole writer of this song. It’s a collaboration between him and a fellow named Jim Vallance, and Jim says as far as he’s concerned, it’s just about the year. Well, I guess ultimately the meaning is up to the individual. For me, it’s still about ’65 anyway, and I don’t think that’s a nickname for anything racy.







Vid by YT member dito1981
Photo from Shutterstock