Bryanology: The Semantics of Seduction in the Lyrics of Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams, Canadian Poet Laureate, three-time Oscar nominee and true heir to the song-writing legacy of Bob Dylan, is also a prime proponent of cock rock.

In this article I examine some of his poetry for their florid description, astute observation and sound love-making advice.

Bryan Adams and the Physical Act

Bryan doesn’t like to leave much to the imagination. He wants to demonstrate to us, not just his lyrical virtuosity, but also his experience in the bedroom.

This, from Tonight We Have The Stars (2008), explains how we might progress from the dinner date to the bedroom, Adams-style:

We’ll save ourselves a bottle
Of California red
We’ll drink it on a Tuesday
Let it go straight to our heads

And we’ll eat from good china
And make love on linen sheets

Once in the bedroom, Adams is a master of seduction. His ability to describe the Act in words of rhyme is unparalleled, take these couplets from his 1996 smash hit (UK #9) Let’s Make It A Night To Remember:

I love the way you move tonight,
Beads of sweat drippin’ down your skin,
Me lying here ‘n’ you lyin’ there,
Our shadows on the wall and our hands everywhere.

Can’t you just picture it?

However, his experience can be intimidating to us mere mortals. In Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? (1995, UK #3) he mocks the listener’s sexual prowess. His sneering ‘really’ implying that, while we may believe that we have indeed performed the Act, the woman was not truly satisfied. Luckily, Adams gives us quite a detailed lyrical sex manual:

To really love a woman,
To understand her,
You gotta know her deep inside…

He follows this with an explanation of how the woman can teach the male to arouse the sexual organs:

To really love a woman,
Let her hold you,
Till you know how she needs to be touched.

Then Adams takes it to the next level with an exhortation to extreme oral sex:

You’ve gotta breathe her – really taste her,
Till you can feel her in your blood.

This may seem a little gruesome to the inexperienced, but it reveals Adams’ dedication to the pleasure of the opposite sex.

Bryan Adams and Invitations to Infidelity

In the 1980s, Adams wrote a string of material about sexual infidelity, starting in 1984 with Run To You (UK #11):

She says her love for me could never die,
But that’d change if she ever found out about you and I,
Oh – but her love is cold,
Would it hurt her if she didn’t know?

The question is rhetorical of course. It is unclear if the subject of Run To You was also the subject of his next song, Princess Diana, in Diana (1984):

Oh the first time I saw you was in a magazine,
The next time you was walking ‘cross my television screen,
I knew right then and there that I had to make you mine,
The day that he married you I nearly lost my mind.

Diana whatcha doin’ with a guy like him,
Diana I’d die for you, please let me in.

Just in case Adams’ intentions were even slightly opaque, like a real man, he makes them quite clear in a later stanza:

Since I saw that picture of you,
Nothing matters I just wanna lay ya.

But Adams was also realistic about his conquests. In One Night Love Affair (1985, Canada #19), Adams is clearly cognisant that love affairs are fleeting, transitory experiences:

The night was made for love, it ain’t for keeps.

Later in the same song, he gives one of the most heart-rendering accounts ever put into rhyme of the vacuous lust that is a one night love affair:

One night love affair,
Trying’ to make like we don’t care,
We were both reachin’ out for somethin’,
One night love affair,
Sometimes life ain’t fair,
Oh – and not we’re left with nothin’.

Please note: whether this poem describes an affair with Princess Diana (dearly departed) or not is never made clear in the poem.

Bryan Adams and Sexual Rejection

Bryan Adams is not always a stallion in the stable of love it would seem – unless, as appears likely, he writes the following verses not from experience, but out of pity for lesser men. This theory is given greater credence by the fact that they are all album tracks, rather than one of those selected for smash hit status.

This verse from If You Wanna Leave Me (1991) mocks the desperation of the dumped and Adams shows his sensitivity to the plight of others by capturing the anguish in words of tearful power:

If you wanna leave me, can I come too?
If you wanna leave me, gonna go with you.
If you say no – I’m still gonna go!
If you wanna leave me – can I come too?

(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear (1996) satirises the desperate lengths that some men will go to in order to become close to the object of their desire. Not a problem I imagine Bryan has:

I wanna be your t-shirt when it’s wet,
Wanna be the shower when you sweat …

Wanna be your sleepin’ bag, baby slip inside,
Let me be your motorcycle n’ take ya for a ride.

But even in the face of rejection, Adams will still insist I Ain’t Losing The Fight (2008):

Bring it on, bring it on I was born ready,
I’m a son of a strong man – I’m rock steady,
Everything you throw I can see it coming,
Ain’t gonna be no TKO just a lot of lovin’.

Bryan Adams and Sexual Malfunction

Fascinatingly, Adams also shows us how to deal with premature ejaculation, in this verse from Hearts On Fire (1987).

First he apologises, as a gentleman:

You know I can’t help,
the way I feel inside…

Then he takes control, as a man, requesting his lady-friend’s immediate presence, telling it straight:

So come on over,
I ain’t hard to please.
Oh baby – what you get ain’t,
always what you need.

No, indeed. Not always what you need; it’s all about what Adams needs. The description of the actual ejaculation is poetic as ever:

Risin’ to my feet I can feel the heat,
It’s tryin’ to pull me under,
Runnin’ through the night,
we can make it right,
It’s comin’ on like thunder.

So the next time you find yourself coming on like thunder, take a deep breath and think of Bryan.

Published by

David

David Charles is co-writer of BBC radio sitcom Foiled. He also writes for The Bike Project, Thighs of Steel, and the Elevate Festival. He blogs at davidcharles.info.

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