Please Forgive Me: The Anthology Reviews #7B: "Somebody" Pt.2

Please Forgive Me: The Anthology Reviews is a track-by-track in-depth analysis of Bryan Adams's legacy in 36 installments.

Disc 1 Track #7: "Somebody" (1985) (Pt. 2)

Well, the previous post gave short shrift to the in-depth analysis that this series strives to stoop to (and generally succeeds!). But that previous post really kind of mis-dicked it, so to speak, so here I am for the bonus round retry.

Now might be as good a time as any to note: for the purposes of these reviews, I pretty much refer to Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance as if they were one person, named Bryan Adams. I want to be clear that this isn't to stint Jim on the credit for his substantial contributions to these songs. Hell the fuck no: Adams & Vallance are up in the epic pantheon of songwriting partnerships, as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps not quite up to the Lennon McCartney level, but dead even with John Taupin and a fine sight ahead of Loggins Messina. How's that for lofty company? Still, for the purposes of these reviews, the decision was made to treat Adams Vallance as one man, and for the sake of simplicity, to call him Bryan.

Not only is this approach significantly less confusing to the readers, who would be wondering "who is this Adams Vallance cat?" Screenwriters do this sort of thing all the time: composite two characters into one. It's just good writing. Economy of characters. You must ask: were two people really necessary to write these songs? In real life, maybe. For the purposes of these reviews, though, definitely not! But also, apart from just plain good writing habits, I'm after a certain epic mythologization, here. To set up this "Bryan Adams" figure as a sort of noble hero, in the tragic mold of yore. So that as mightily above us as he towers in his peaky peaks, we can yet see ourselves in him, and feel for him in his foredoomed fall. The fact is, it's next to impossible to yank out that kind of empathy over two dudes.

But then, that's me: versatile. In addition to my stringent, in-depth analysis, a bit of epic mythologization. Balances it out!

Okay, that's it for "Somebody."