Bryan Adams' 'Summer of '69' Trivia Quiz

Answer: my first real

Canadian singer, guitarist, songwriter, philanthropist and photographer Bryan Guy Adams was born in 1959. He became the vocalist in the group Sweeney Todd when he was 15 and soon afterwards left school to join the group, Shock, before moving on to pursue a solo career in music and meeting musician and songwriter, Jim Vallance.

Jim had left his band to concentrate on songwriting and the two men apparently collaborated closely for a number of years to co-write songs for Bryan and for other artists, such as Tina Turner and Kiss, then worked together more intermittently after that. Together they wrote Bryan's first single, 'Let Me Take You Dancing' (1978) and most of the songs on his first album entitled simply 'Bryan Adams' (1980). Then in January 1984 they co-wrote the song 'Summer of '69', working in Jim's basement studio.

Answer: married

The fictional band member 'Jody', who got married and presumably left the band in Bryan Adams' song 'Summer of '69', was based on a real-life person, Jody Perpik, who was the sound man and tour manager for Bryan. Around the time Bryan and Jim Vallance were composing the song the real Jody did get married although he carried on being Bryan's sound man and tour manager.

The video for the song was filmed by Steve Barton and Jody and his wife appeared in it in the car with a "Just Married" sign. Bryan's girlfriend in the video was played by English actress Lysette Anthony. The actor who played her later husband/partner was Garwin Sanford, who became better known for his role as Captain Taylor Shields in the television series 'Hawkeye'. Although it did not win, the video was nominated for a 1985 MTV Video Music Award in the Best Male Video category.

Answer: last forever

The single, 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams, was recorded in the Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver and produced by Bryan and by Bob Clearmountain. It was first released as a single in June 1985 and was the fourth single to be released from his 1984 album, 'Reckless'. Two tracks appeared on its B-side, one of which was 'Kids Wanna Rock', another track from the same album, and the other was 'The Best Was Yet to Come' from his previous album 'Cuts Like a Knife' (1983). 'Summer of '69' rose to number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and to number eleven on the Canadian RPM singles chart.

It only reached number forty-two on the UK singles chart but Bryan has said that this was because the song was not played on a major radio station in the UK at the time. The song gradually became, and remained, more popular in the UK though and eventually received a double Platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales there. In fact, when it was re-issued later, it reached the lower levels of the UK singles charts in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Answer: complainin'

As well as in the USA, Canada and the UK, Bryan Adams' song 'Summer of '69' was a success in many other countries too. In mainland Europe it reached the top ten in the Norwegian and Belgian singles charts and the top twenty in both the Swedish and Austrian charts. It did slightly less well in other countries, but did rise to number sixty-two in Germany and to number twenty-nine in Poland. In 1990 the song's popularity grew in other European countries and it reached number four in the Netherlands singles chart and re-entered the Belgian one at number eight.

A later globally successful single for Bryan Adams was the 1991 '(Everything I Do) I Do It For You', which was on the soundtrack of 'Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves', a 1991 movie starring Kevin Costner. This reached number one in the singles charts of at least nineteen countries and remained at number one for sixteen consecutive weeks in the UK. In 1992 Bryan and his co-writers, Michael Kamen and 'Mutt' Lange, received a Grammy Award in the category Best Song Written for a Motion Picture or Television.

Answer: my evenin's

Released as a single in 1985, 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams was not only successful in North America and in Europe but did well on other continents too. In its year of release it reached number seven in the New Zealand singles chart and number fourteen in the Australian one. The song has become well known in several Asian countries, including India. People in the Indian music industry, such as a Universal Music India executive, have accounted Bryan the best-known foreign musician in India.

Over the decades Bryan has toured extensively, both in North America and in other continents. For instance, he has given concerts in European countries such as England and Luxembourg, in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Pakistan and many more. He also sang 'Summer of '69' in Bangladesh during the opening ceremony for the 2011 Cricket World Cup. Later he and Taylor Swift sang the song as a duet in 2018 in Toronto during her Reputation tour.

Answer: mama's porch

The song 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams is clearly about someone looking back on a very happy period in his life. The number '69' in the song title appears to be about the summer of 1969 although it is accepted that the song was not merely autobiographical as Bryan Adams would only have been nine or ten years old at that time. His co-writer, Jim Vallance, explained on his website how different lines of the song were influenced by lines from earlier songs by other people.

Bryan later stated that the number actually referred to the sexual position 69 and to making love. Examples of this statement were in a 2009 interview he gave to Carl Wiser writing for the online music site, 'Songfacts', and in another he gave on television to 'The Early Show' in 2008. In contrast, Jim Vallance maintained, for example on the 'Songfacts' message board, that the final written version of the song did originally refer to the year 1969. He added that only later when making a demo of the song did Bryan add a 'naughty little bit' at the end then decide to keep it in when recording.

Answer: young and restless

'Summer of '69', the 1985 single by Bryan Adams, was one of ten tracks to be included on his fourth album, 'Reckless', from which a total of six singles were eventually released. The album itself was released towards the end of 1984 and did very well in several countries. It reached number one on both the Canadian albums chart and on the US Billboard 200, as well as rising to number seven on the UK album chart and to number one on the New Zealand chart.

The album became the first one by a Canadian artist to be awarded a Diamond certification in Canada for having sold over one million copies in various forms there. It also received three Platinum certifications in the UK and five in the US and single Platinum certifications in several other lands. In all it has sold over twelve million copies throughout the world and in 1985 received a Juno Award for Album of the Year. Bryan was also nominated for Best Male Rock Performance in 1986.

Answer: come and gone

Bryan Adams' song 'Summer of '69' was not the first single from the album 'Reckless' to be released as a single. The tracks 'Run to You', 'Somebody' and 'Heaven' had previously appeared as singles in that order. In Canada 'Run to You' was the most successful of these songs in terms of copies sold, and reached number four in the Canadian singles chart, so doing better by seven places than 'Summer of '69'. The other two singles also did well in Canada though with 'Somebody' rising to number thirteen and 'Heaven', which had been recorded in 1983 but was not released until June 1985, reaching number eleven in the singles chart.

In other countries 'Somebody' reached number eleven in the US Billboard Hot 100 while 'Run to You' rose to number six in the same chart, to number eight in the Irish singles chart and to number eleven in the UK one. 'Heaven' had already formed part of the soundtrack to the 1983 movie, 'A Night in Heaven', and was the most successful of the tracks released as singles from 'Reckless' in the USA, reaching the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100. However, none of these three singles have had the ongoing popularity of 'Summer of '69'.

Answer: last forever

A total of six tracks were released as singles from Bryan Adams album 'Reckless' with 'Summer of '69' being the fourth one. The two tracks to be released after this one were 'One Night Love Affair' and then 'It's Only Love'. Like the previous four songs released from the album, these two singles did well in Canada as 'One Night Love Affair' reached number nineteen in the Canadian singles chart and 'It's Only Love' reached number fourteen there. Again like the four earlier songs, these two songs also reached at least number fifteen in the US Billboard Hot 100 although neither of them have remained as lastingly popular as 'Summer of '69'.

'It's Only Love' was a duet by Bryan and Tina Turner and was nominated for a 1986 Grammy Award in the category Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. The artists' performance of this song was also nominated for, and this time won, the 1986 MTV Video Music Award for Best Stage Performance. As well as carrying out his extensive Reckless tour from late 1984 onwards, which included performances in countries in four continents, Bryan also appeared with Tina Turner at the Birmingham, England, venue on her 1985 'Private Dancer' tour.

Answer: best days

Part of this line of the song 'Summer of '69' by Bryan Adams was originally intended by him and his co-writer, Jim Vallance, to be the title of the song and they were going to name it 'Best Days of My Life'. This line, as per Jim's recollections on his website, appeared seven times in the song as they first wrote it while the line that eventually became the title was only included once. However, as the song evolved this emphasis was changed so that the final written version only included 'Best Days of My Life' three times. 'Summer of '69' appeared five times in this final written version although another, slightly different, repetition, was added by Bryan at the recording stage.

Over the years Bryan has been nominated for, and received, many awards. He has been nominated for Golden Globe and Grammy Awards for film songwriting, for instance for the 2006 movie 'Bobby'. He has won at least eighteen Juno Awards and has been inducted into both the Canadian and the Hollywood Walks of Fame, as well as into the Canadian Broadcast and Music Halls of Fame. In 2006 he was awarded the Order of Canada and in 2010 he was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his artistic contributions over more than thirty years.