30-Day Song Challenge, Day 26: A Song That Makes You Want to Fall in Love
In the summer of 1991, I was 21 years old and finally beginning to move on from a heartbreak I’d experienced the previous year. In retrospect, I never should have allowed myself to sulk for so long about that situation, which really couldn’t have turned out any other way except the way that it did. But that’s the somewhat wiser perspective of a 51-year-old whose scars (and hormones) have faded. Back then, when it was all fresh and red and oozing, and I was still more of a boy than any kind of functional adult… well, back then I fancied myself some kind of Byronic hero, a tragic figure swathed in melancholy, wounded by love as no one in the history of humankind had ever been wounded before, existing in the shadows and clinging to the bright pain that gives life meaning. (“Call me... Darkman…”)
Christ, no wonder I had such a hard time getting a date!
Seriously, though, now that I think about it, this awful period was probably my first encounter with the Black Dog of depression, and I probably could’ve used some professional help instead of muddling through it on my own. I’m more than a little embarrassed about my behavior and thinking during that time. But as I said, by the summer of ’91, I was starting to pull myself out of the funk. And in spite of the aforementioned difficulty, I was starting to land the occasional date, too. For example, there was the afternoon I escorted an old friend to see Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at the theater where I worked.
Now, that movie is what it is and this isn’t the place to debate its merits or lack thereof. And whatever intentions (hopes? wishes?) I may have had toward that friend didn’t pan out. We had a nice afternoon at the movies, but that was all. Perhaps I wasn’t as ready to move on as I thought as I was, or maybe too much time had passed to rekindle anything with that particular girl. Maybe I never actually had any intentions at all and I just wanted to see a movie with a friend. I don’t recall for sure anymore. But whatever the ultimate outcome, there was a moment during the movie’s closing credits when I suddenly felt… well, something between us. It might have been wishful thinking, it might just have been the mood generated by the movie’s romantic ending, but it was there, and it did me a world of good to feel that way, if only for a moment. To know that I still could feel that way. For that reason alone, I’ve never been able to join in when everybody else starts ragging on that movie.
Music is, of course, a huge component of how a movie affects the viewer, and I have no doubt that the song that played over the end credits of Prince of Thieves was as responsible for how I felt in that moment as anything. “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” was Bryan Adams’ first foray into movie music and it proved to be a good career move for him, as the song became a number-one hit in 16 different countries and remains Adams’ biggest-selling song. It also led to him writing and recording a slew of other movie songs, both for himself and for other performers, including a couple of power ballads that were very similar to “(Everything I Do)” in sound and mood: “All for Love,” a collaboration with Rod Stewart and Sting for the 1993 Disney version of The Three Musketeers and “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” from the Johnny Depp vehicle Don Juan DeMarco. For my money, though, “(Everything I Do)” is the best of these, as well as one of the best love songs of the last several decades. Because while love songs are a dime a dozen, especially in pop and rock circles, I’ve never heard one that captures the feeling of tenderness in such an honest, true-to-life way. At least to my ear. Your mileage may vary.
This song isn’t about the early infatuation stage of a relationship or about physical lust, as intoxicating as those things are; this song is more mature than that. It’s a promise. It’s a knight pledging himself to a lady.
And one day back in 1991, it really did make me want to fall in love again
A final note about the video: I know there was one that incorporated clips from the movie along with Adams in a long black coat walking along a stony English-looking beach, but for some reason, I couldn’t find that one. Probably something to do with licensing, I would guess, because of the movie footage. Here’s another version that’s not nearly as good… but we’re here to listen to the music anyhow, right?
