Gillan just sells it very well. In my first flush of Purple adoration I never once thought that Gillan's lyrics were bad, but many years later I can look at them a little more critically and see where some were a bit silly or whatever. But such criticism doesn't really mean anything because the whole Purple experience is so stunning. You hear this deep and complex wall of sound topped off by Gillan's robust midrange and stunning screams, and suddenly it doesn't matter what he is singing.
Frank Zappa detractors should check out the lyrics to Jumbo Go Away - a song about a groupie that threatens violence and has the three thing that "smell like fish" line. I'm not politically correct, but this is unbelievable, even for the time. His groupie songs were usually about real life experiences.
Not that it excuses Adams for putting them out, but I think most of his lyrics were written by Jim Vallance.
Even as a Canadian, I don't disagree, but I still give him nudge-wink credit for Summer of '69. But in fairness, if we're talking banal or generic lyrics, there's way worse.
Not to be too obvious, but lyrics that are racist or misogynist get a hard pass. There’s too much good music in the world to waste time on that garbage.
LOL. Damn Yankee. You have to disregard the lyrics, and focus on the title. Do we have to explain everything? Sigh. P.S. (I don't like it either)
No. Typically, if I hate the lyrics, I also hate the person/band singing them. But there have been times where some of the bands and artists I like have hung around past their prime, and as a result, have released some cringe lyrics... but that doesn't count lol.
No, I get the double entendre, it's one of the reasons I hate the song! I mean, it's the most generic boilerplate commercial rock song one could imagine in the 80's; clean-cut, ingenuous, and nostalgic with a total middle-class vibe, AND its title is a barely-disguised, lazy sexual innuendo? What does this song take me for?
I'm pretty sure that I heard from the Adams mouth itself that the title is exactly as it is supposed. People were pointing out that Bryan Adams would have been 10 in 1969 so he couldn't possibly have had all the rock'n'roll adventures that he sings about then, but he pointed out that it was not a summer of 1969 that he was singing about, but a summer in which one enjoyed a lot of... you get it.
This one's particularly grating because it might be my favorite song musically on Street Legal and his singing is superb here. But that was cringeworthy in 1978!
but. you're taking these lyrics out of context. you're assuming that they intended to write something clever or meaningful, when they obviously wrote those kinds of lyrics for a good time. those lyrics from "pour some sugar on me" match exactly what the glam rock/stomp backing track delivers. a fun listen without carrying the burden of being meaningful or too much thought. music and lyrics can be both--and all things inbetween--and you can like them both (or not like them both) for what they are, not what they aren't.
I dislike dumb lyrics. One of my issues with Paul McCartney is he will often be lazy when he writes lyrics.
Indeed he did claim that, but I figure he was just getting sick of all the people pointing out how old he was in 1969, so he decided to shake things up a bit. Certainly the guy who wrote most of the lyrics, Jim Vallance, says that the song is about what it appears to be. And he was of age in '69.
I've just played the song's original video - I had never heard that before - and OK I'm not an English speaker, but I fail to hear that "69" innuendo... Adams must have made that interpretation up to make himself look more interesting (risqué)... Perhaps I shouldn't have looked at that video but concentrated instead on just the lyrics...
@Dudley Morris has pretty well answered Adams' story, but I never thought that there was actual innuendo in the song's lyrics past the use of "69" in the title, and Adams' fade out line of "Me and my baby in '69." For me, that's what made the presumed innuendo so objectionable - it seemed gratuitous and throwaway. But anyway, if Jim Vallance says that's not what he meant, I'll gladly defer to him and have one more reason to look askance at Bryan Adams personally.
Yes, but not really because of the quality of the lyric writing. I like plenty of music with dumb lyrics. When I dislike an artist because of lyrics, it’s because they’re Nazis or something.
The only example I can think of now are Simple Minds. Jim Kerr's lyrics aren't very good and it annoys me a little bit. But the music and his vocals more than make up for it. I still like them. So.. I guess not a good example.
I think maybe I would have liked The Knack a little bit more if it weren't for the stupid lyrics. But maybe not.