Remember that time in 4th grade when my class had a contest to see who could best sing Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”?
I suppose I haven’t mentioned it yet.
Any willing participant had a chance to stand in front of the class with the Walkman headphones on and sing along with Bryan, to the cheers or jeers of her peers.
This was obviously very awkward. First of all, whoever was singing was the only one who could hear the track; to the 30 other people in the room, all they were hearing was an unaccompanied, nervous, pre-adolescent warble. Secondly, we were 10-years old. The most passionate thing I could think of was footsy. However, as I remember vividly, this didn’t stop one girl from closing her eyes and feigning Whitney Houston.
Yeaaaah, I’d fight for you… [fist pump]
To me, Bryan Adams remained frozen in memory, frozen in time, in that Pomona Elementary classroom – that is, until last year when my friend Duane reintroduced me.
Oh, friends. What I had been MISSING OUT ON all those years.
Duane knows me well enough to know that he would need to be sneaky, so he started by sending me a few songs that our guy Bry had written with Gretchen Peters – one of my favorite writers in the history of the universe (remember, I wrote about her here). From the first tentative listen to those tracks, all doubt was blown away:
Bryan Adams is where it’s at. His songs are fantastic.
I have a short list of people that I have to see in concert someday – and in addition to Patty Griffin (which will FINALLY happen at the end of this month), Shania Twain, and Phil Collins, Bryan Adams has earned his place.
And I just felt like declaring it to the world.
