At the time Sting was enjoying some success in the world of film music, having also worked with Kamen on It’s Probably Me, the theme song to Lethal Weapon 3. Kamen was no stranger to pop music, having provided orchestral arrangements for Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, The Eurythmics and Def Leppard among many others so had many contacts. The songwriting team remained the same but this time Kamen wanted to bring in two other singers to echo the titular triumvirate of heroes in the story. The six-and-a-half minute (and in my opinion, far better) version of Everything I Do includes an extended two minute guitar solo at the end from one of my favourite guitarists, Keith Scott.įollowing the success of Everything I Do and hoping to deliberately recapture what had previously been a happy accident, Kamen approached Adams again to work on a song for Disney’s big budget, star studded version of The Three Musketeers. It’s worth checking out the album Waking Up The Neighbors which came out three months after the film. When they heard the finished product they panicked and hid it away at the halfway point of the closing credits, not realising what a worldwide smash they had on their hands. Originally the film producers wanted a period appropriate song with lutes and lyres. Kamen decided that Adams’ gravelly voice and hastily penned (cobbled together in less than an hour) romantic lyrics, incorporating lines of dialogue from the film worked best with his self proclaimed ‘sweet melodies’. Eventually it was whittled down to two possibilities: A duet between Julia Fordham with Chicago frontman Peter Cetera (who had provided the syrupy ballad Glory Of Love for The Karate Kid Part II) and Bryan Adams with his long time songwriting partner and producer R.J. These included Kate Bush, Lisa Stansfield and Annie Lennox. When Michael Kamen was putting the soundtrack for Robin Hood: Prince Of Thievestogether, several big music stars of the time were approached to collaborate on a pop song based on his Maid Marian theme. But it could have turned out so differently…
It’s now one of the biggest selling songs of all time. It lost out to Beauty & The Beast on the night but went on to win AMA, Juno, Grammy and Ivor Novello awards. Everything I Do became Bryan Adams’ first of three Oscar nominations for best song. It remained at number 1 in the UK for 16 weeks a record still unbroken over a quarter of a century later despite the best efforts of Wet Wet Wet, Whitney Houston and Drake.
If you’re old enough to remember the summer of ‘91 you’ll also remember that you could not escape this song (no matter how hard you might have tried). Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, 1991) Avildsen would follow it up a year later with the much more well received The Karate Kid. It received widespread hostility from audiences and critics alike and failed to make back it’s $6 million budget. These days A Night In Heaven is relatively unknown, having been largely overshadowed by the very similar (and far superior) Flashdance (a student working as a dancer by night seduces a much older college professor and has to face the consequences).
Luckily, the gamble paid off as it went on to become his first number 1 single in the US. A last minute change of heart on Adams’ part saved the track. It almost didn’t make the shortlist for Reckless as it was a lot lighter in tone than the rest of the album. Until Reckless came out a year later, the soundtrack album was the only place where this song could be found. Originally written as a tribute to Journey while he was touring as their support act, it was picked to become the love theme to John G. However, it’s Heaven which has gone on to become one of Adams’ most covered songs. Bryan Adams’ Reckless album produced some stone cold classic rock tracks including Summer Of ‘69, Kids Wanna Rock, It’s Only Love (with Tina Turner) and Run To You.
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