Released June 18, 1991 Recorded March 1991 | Format 7"CD | |
B-side "She's Only Happy When She's Dancing" (Live in Belgium 1989) Length 6:34 (album version)4:06 (single version) | ||
"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. Written by Adams, Michael Kamen and Robert John "Mutt" Lange, featured on two albums simultaneously on its release, the soundtrack album from the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and on Adams' sixth album Waking Up the Neighbours (1991). The song was an enormous chart success internationally, particularly in the United Kingdom, where it spent sixteen consecutive weeks at number one on the UK Singles Chart (the longest in British chart history). It also spent seven weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and nine weeks atop the Canadian Singles Chart in Adams's native Canada. Billboard ranked it as the No. 1 song for 1991. At the time of its seven-week stint in America, it was the longest running #1 since The Police's "Every Breath You Take" spent eight weeks at #1 during the summer of 1983. It was a number one hit on many countries' music charts and went on to sell more than 15 million copies worldwide, making it Adams' most successful song and one of the best-selling singles of all time.
Contents
- Background
- Music videos
- Fatima Mansions version
- Brandy version
- Track listings
- Credits and personnel
- References
Adams, Kamen and Lange won a Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television at the Grammy Awards of 1992, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song but lost to "Beauty and the Beast". Subsequently, the song has been covered by hundreds of singers and artists around the world.
Background
The musicians on the original recording are Adams on lead vocals and guitar, Bill Payne (piano), Mickey Curry (drums), Larry Klein (bass), Keith Scott (guitar) and Mutt Lange (keyboards and background vocals). The song was written in London, England at the studio Adams was working at in 1990, and he and Lange wrote it in 45 minutes. The song is performed in the key of D ♭ major.
Music videos
The official music video for the song was directed by Julien Temple. A video was also commissioned for a live version of the song, directed by Andy Morahan.
Fatima Mansions version
The Irish band Fatima Mansions released a heavily altered cover of the song as part of an NME tribute album in aid of the charity, the Spastics Society. The single was a double A-side with the Manic Street Preachers' version of "Suicide Is Painless". The single entered the UK top ten in 1992, and reached number 12 in the Republic of Ireland However, The Manic Street Preachers song received most of the UK radio airplay.
Brandy version
American singer Brandy rerecorded "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" for the standard version of second studio album Never Say Never (1998). Producer David Foster reworked the arrangement of the original song, with Dean Parks playing the acoustic guitar.
In 1999, her cover version was released as the album's final single on a double A-side with "U Don't Know Me" on the Oceanic music market, where it reached the top 30 of New Zealand's RIANZ singles chart.
Track listings
- "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" – 4:10
- "U Don't Know Me" – 4:29
- "Have You Ever?" (Soul Skank Remix) – 5:40
Credits and personnel
Credits are taken from Never Say Never liner notes.