(Everything I Do) I Do It For You: the number one-iest number one ever
When I started this project I had posts banked up to four weeks in advance. FOUR WEEKS. Halycon days. Now I’m flying by the seat of my pants, getting closer and closer to the Friday deadline. Slowly regretting my commitment to remarking on a number one single from the same week in a year gone by because, let’s face it, popular music is roundly shit and most weeks it’s slim pickings in the extreme. Number twos would have been a better bet. Why didn’t I do number twos?? So many missed opportunities for toilet humour. And, broadly speaking, better music.
But I will get there goddammit, even if they have to drag me over the 52 weeks finish line kicking and screaming, having turned to writing acrostics about the Vengaboys in sheer desperation. You have been warned.
Anyway. Bryan bloody Adams! I couldn’t let this one go by unremarked. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You’s sixteen consecutive weeks at number one have never been beaten — and probably never will. It has held the record for longest consecutive UK number one since 1991.
Adams and super-producer Mutt Lange were tasked with writing a theme song for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and they knocked out this power ballad in a cool 45 minutes in a London studio. What a 45 minutes! Lange said he knew it was a winner from the off.
Adams had pretty decent rock credibility before EIDIDIFY, his album Reckless was well received (worth a listen for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of MOR — and I really don’t), but this mega-hit put him firmly on the slow dance roster. He’s been seen as a bit of a cheese-peddler ever since.
I’ve lived in Leeds for two decades now, but I am a Nottingham girl and Prince of Thieves was a big deal for us lot when it came out. My dad lives in the centre of town near the castle and I still remember watching the American tourists swarm in in the wake of the film’s success. The fact that Nottingham castle isn’t actually a castley castle must have been devastating. It’s a hell of a long way to go for a fancy old house with a shit museum. You would be forgiven for thinking they’d been sold the plane ticket on the basis they’d catch a glimpse of Costner, they all walked round looking so disappointed.
We did have Tales of Robin Hood, a sort of would-be Jorvik Viking Centre with a chairlift ride taking you through the (smelly) streets of medieval Nottingham, and the Major Oak which is quite a hike out of town for what is basically a big old tree that you’re not allowed to touch.
We also had World of Robin Hood for a while, which was a living village sort of thing with live actors drinking mead. And that was in Worksop, I think, which is even less a place you’d pick to go on your holidays than Nottingham. It was all far from the Disney experience. I’m not sure we East Midlanders do tourism in quite the same way the Americans do.
Still, we owe a debt to Bryan for those early nineties glory days. Ah good old Bryan. Famous for being Canadian, vegan and writing the Robin Hood song. It could be worse, right? These days I feel like Summer of 69 is more offensive, it genuinely makes me want to kill. Whereas EIDIDIFY just does what it does very well. Soppy, but pleasant. You’ll get no hate from me here. I think I can still play that intro on the piano. Hold my beer.
This post is part of the #write52 project, a writing initiative to encourage lazy writers like me to bust out their own content instead of dossing around doing client work and tax returns.
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What, me? I’m Penny Brazier, a freelance writer and content strategist who, despite 6 years of piano lessons, can only play two and a half things on the piano, and one of them is chopsticks. Here is my Twitter where I say little of any value and here is my Instagram which isn’t much better.
