FEATURE:
Groovelines
Don Henley - The Boys of Summer
__________
TAKEN from his 1984 album…
Building the Perfect Beast, I wanted to go a bit deeper with The Boys of Summer. Reaching number twenty in the U.S. upon its release, this single (released, somewhat ironically, on 26th October) has grown hugely in popularity and stature since 1984. Almost synonymous with this time of year, The Boys of Summer boasts one of the most memorable choruses ever. Actually, The Boys of Summer is more about looking back at a better time or dealing with ageing. It is one of those songs that speaks to all generations because of its instantly accessible sound. Even though the lyrics are quite personal and particular to Don Henley, the sheer singalong quality means that the track has been taken to heart by so many others through the years. American Songwriter looked back at the classic track in 2109. A sense of letting go of the past looms quite large. The Boys of Summer is definitely a track that has been close to my heart since I was a child:
“The Boys of Summer” – Written by Don Henley and Mike Campbel
While you may think that we chose Don Henley’s “The Boys Of Summer” to dissect this week due to its ties to the hottest season, a closer listen to this #5 hit from 1984 reveals that it is in many ways an anti-summer song. Indeed, one of the first lines out of Henley’s mouth is “The summer’s out of reach.”
Instead of a treatise on sun, surf, and all the rest, “The Boys Of Summer” presents a wistful portrait of a man clinging to a lover who has left him in the cold for the titular flavors of the season. Henley borrowed the title from Roger Kahn’s famous book about the Brooklyn Dodgers and used it to represent everything youthful and vibrant with which the narrator can no longer compete.
Henley got an unlikely writing assist on the song from Heartbreaker Mike Campbell. Campbell often wrote the music for Tom Petty songs and then let Petty add in the lyrics and melody. He demoed the track that would become “The Boys Of Summer,” but Petty, ever the rock traditionalist, balked at the heavy use of synthesizers.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as they say, and Henley gladly scooped up the dynamic track, adding lyrics that dovetailed perfectly with the icy beauty of Campbell’s music. Ironically, Petty would try to catch the same kind of magic a few years later with “Runaway Train,” a similarly synthesizer-heavy Campbell composition, but it failed to make much of a dent in the charts.
As for the lyrics, the most memorable line in the song is the narrator’s damning observation in the final verse: “Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.” For those who were wondering, yes, it actually happened to Henley, as he recounted in a 1985 interview with NME: “I was driving down the San Diego freeway and just got passed by a $21,000 Cadillac Seville, the status symbol of the Right-wing upper-middle class…and there was this Grateful Dead ‘Deadhead’ bumper sticker on it!”.
If you listen to The Boys of Summer and feel it would have sounded perfect for Tom Petty, he was actually offered the demo of the song but turned it down. Ultimate Classic Rock told the story of this now-classic song that was rejected by one of the legendary and most important songwriters ever:
“Tom Petty's rejection of a demo made by Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell paved the way for Don Henley to record one of his biggest solo hits, 1984's "The Boys of Summer."
On Brian Koppelman's podcast The Moment, Campbell said he had created the demo with a new Linn drum machine, complete with all the chords and the guitar parts but no words. He played it at his house for Petty and producer Jimmy Iovine, both of whom were underwhelmed.
"In Tom's defense, when I got to the chorus, I went to a different chord," Campbell said. "It was kind of like a minor chord. As the song ended up, on the chorus it goes to that big major chord. You know, it lifts up. And so he heard a slightly inferior version. And I remember when it went by, we were kind of grooving to it, and it got to that chord and Jimmy Iovine goes, 'Eh, it sounds like jazz.'"
Campbell was "completely deflated" by the response, but he also realized Iovine was right. So he changed the chords on the chorus and dropped them onto the demo. Then Iovine called him and suggested he play it for Henley, who was looking for music for what would become Building the Perfect Beast. Figuring that Petty, even with the new chords, was "probably fed up with it" and had plenty of other music to work with, Campbell agreed and took the tape to the former Eagles drummer's house.
"It was just me and him," Campbell noted. "We sat at a big table. He sat at the other end like the judge, totally quiet and didn't bat an eye - just listened with his eyes closed. And then he said, 'Okay, maybe I can do something with that.'"
Campbell, who'd never met Henley before, said the drummer was so serious that he couldn't tell if he liked it. Then he got a phone call from Henley. "He's like, 'Oh, I just wrote the best song of my life to your music,'" Campbell remembered. "'Really? I'd like to hear that.'"
But the demo was in a key ill-suited for Henley's voice. So, when it came time to track the song in the studio, Campbell had to re-learn all the guitar parts he had improvised on the demo, which was in a higher key. He was able to get it all down, but he made one spontaneous change: the song's classic outro solo.
Campbell also recalled that during the sessions for Southern Accents, he and Petty went out to a car to listen to a mix of "Don't Come Around Here No More," only to turn on the ignition and hear the radio playing "The Boys of Summer." Thinking it might upset Petty, Campbell immediately changed the station, only to hear another station playing the song, too.
"'Boy, you know, you were really lucky with that,'" Campbell remembered his partner as saying. "'I wish I would have had the presence of mind to not let that get away.' That was a real 'brother' moment we had".
I am going to finish off with a Wikipedia article that tells of the success and accolades The Boys of Summer has accrued. It is a song that will never age. You just know radio stations around the world will spin The Boys of Summer for decades to come:
“The Boys of Summer" reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart for five weeks. It was his most successful hit in the United Kingdom, reaching No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart. A re-release of the single in 1998 also reached No. 12.
In 1986, Henley won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for the song. "The Boys of Summer" was ranked No. 416 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. "The Boys of Summer" is included in The Pitchfork 500, Pitchfork Media's "Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to Present."
Tom Petty was astounded by the track's success. One day, he and Campbell were out on a car drive to listen to a mix of their song "Don't Come Around Here No More", but turned on the ignition and heard "The Boys of Summer". Campbell changed the station in case the song would upset Petty, but another station was also playing the song. Petty enjoyed listening to it and regretted initially turning it down”.
If you have not heard Don Henley’s The Boys of Summer for quite a while, got and spin it now. The black-and-white video for it is pretty amazing too! A song perfect for this hot weather, its lyrics and sense of looking back at the past with caution is a reason why it has endured and touched so many people. This 1984 diamond will continue to shine brightly…
FOR generations.