Bryan Adams -- "Heaven"

Firstly, Bryan Adams has a Web site that is in my opinion quite well designed and well maintained. On this Web site are some photographs Bryan Adams has taken of famous people. They are actually very good. Check them out. I like the Morrissey ones.

Also! Bryan Adams wrote some bad lyrics once. Here they are.

Oh - thinking about all our younger years / There was only you and me / We were young and wild and free

You know, when I listen to the opening guitar riffs of this song, I always expect Steve Perry to bust in and sing "Highway run / Into the midnight sun." It never happens, but still.

So, I was more than a little tickled to find this aside on the Wikipedia page for this song: "While writing 'Heaven', Adams and [Jim] Vallance were influenced by Journey's music and lyrical style, particular their song 'Faithfully.'" This proves, unequivocally, once and for all, that I am a genius.

Also, this video is almost like David Lynch-ian, with Bryan Adams alone in a theater with about a thousand TVs. I think it's some kind of commentary on the unique solitude of a rock star, and how it's possible for one to be surrounded by people and yet still completely alone. Of course, this is completely unrelated to the content of the song, which is about a guy who really really likes a girl and everything is totally awesome and nothing can ever tear them apart (not anymore, at least, everything is totally cool now and all that bad stuff is totally in the past) and they will be together forever until the end of time.

Now nothing can take you away from me / We’ve been down that road before / But that’s over now / You keep me coming back for more

You know, Bryan Adams seems like kind of a cool guy. He's Canadian, speaks Portuguese, has a charitable foundation that probably does some pretty good work, took those cool photographs on his Web site ... and yet, and yet, he writes some of the cheesiest songs ever. Why is this? Does the fault lie with his songwriting partner, Jim Vallance? Does Bryan Adams write like some seriously introspective and literate and lyrical shit and then Vallance tears it up and says, "Fuck this, Adams! Give the people what they want! The people want insipid tripe that's been written, recorded, released, chewed up, swallowed and regurgitated by musicians ten million times since the dawn of time when Neanderthal man got his first real six-string at the five and dime!" Then Adams always gives in because Jim Vallance is fourteen feet tall, weighs 525 pounds, and eats the bones of failed songwriters for breakfast.

Anyhow, that's my working theory on how we ended up with these lyrics here.

Baby you’re all that I want / When you’re lying here in my arms / I’m finding it hard to believe / We’re in heaven

I think you are right to be skeptical, Bryan Adams. It sounds like you two have had some tough times in the past, and although things may seem real nice right now, relaxing in bed after you have presumably just had sexual intercourse, this may just be an illusion of happiness.

And love is all that I need / And I found it there in your heart / It isn’t too hard to see / We're in heaven

Or, OK, you're actually in heaven. That's another theory.

"Love is all that I need, and I found it there in your heart?" Come on now, Vallance. Let's be reasonable here. Why don't you let Bryan Adams out of his cage in your basement, where you only let him out to perform the occasional benefit concert in sub-Saharan Africa or snap a few photos of Lindsay Lohan, and give him a crack at some of this songwriting? .... I don't think he can hear me. He's plucking full-grown eagles out of the sky right now and manipulating their vocal cords to make them sing "Cuts Like a Knife."

Oh - once in your life you find someone / Who will turn your world around / Bring you up when you’re feeling down

Oh, buh-rother.

Yeah - nothing could change what you mean to me / Oh there’s lots that I could say / But just hold me now / ‘Cause our love will light the way

I changed my mind. Jim Vallance is actually in fifth grade and Bryan Adams is afraid to tell him that his lyrics are bad because he will start crying.

I've been waiting for so long / For something to arrive / For love to come along / Now our dreams are coming true / Through the good times and the bad / Yeah – I’ll be standing there by you

I changed my mind again. I think this song was a little experiment to see how many power-ballad cliches could be crammed into one radio-length song. Somebody call the Guinness Book of World Records.