I have heard this song my whole life, but just recently really started focusing on it. This is Don Henley’s masterpiece. It’s better than anything he did with The Eagles in my opinion. It’s moved into my top 15 songs of all time.
I love the nostalgic feeling about the song, I love how wistful and poignant it is. It has an awesome double meaning with the title of the song. The Boys of Summer could be a reference to baseball and the season ending, or meaningless flings the women in the song had.
The narrator goes back and forth between trying to rekindle a love, and moving on. It also has one of the best lyrics in the history of music, “I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?” Looking deeper and this song is more than a surface level love song. It’s a song about life, regrets, and the passage of time. The musical part at the end is also truly magnificent and gives you sense of optimism. I have been listening to this song every day lately.
Worth noting it was written by Mike Campbell, guitarist and member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers!
And Tom turned it down. I think he said it was too jazzy for the record they were making.
Petty heard a demo with a different chord arrangement than the final song did, and Petty and his producer (Jimmy Iovine) turned it down. Petty never heard the final version, and Iovine is the one who made the “it sounds like Jazz” comment. Campbell never even tried to have Petty hear the final version.
Iovine is also the one that took the second demo (which Petty never heard) and helped Campbell get it into Don Henley’s hands.
Then Don Henley wrote all the words and changed the key. And then Campbell re-wrote the guitar solo at the end.
So in the end the song Petty turned down had a different chord progression in the chorus, was in a different key, and had a different solo at the end, and the words hadn’t been written.
I thought I knew what that song was, what did I know?
I did not know this part of the story. Thanks for sharing.
So what even was the song Petty turned down. Sounds like there was nothing there yet.
I think this progression of songwriting is more common than you think. For many bands, the lyrics, although important to some fans, are very secondary. Kurt Cobain completely derided Nirvana fans for trying to find meaning in his lyrics, saying most of them were simply based on random poetry he wrote in high school and that fans should be listening to the music.
So if we take the lyrics out, we’ve got maybe 66-75% of the Boys of Summer we know. Petty hears that version, doesn’t like where it’s at, and doesn’t know what to do with it, so he turns it down. Iovine hears the second one, thinks it’s more suited to Hensley, and shows it to him, and he makes what we know.
Not altogether too weird, when you really think about it.
The Linn drum machine and synth were there and I believe the chorus but Petty wasn’t a synth band
There was the intro, the chords for the verses, and some of the structure of the chorus. Also, there was the basic melody and rhythm of the vocals for the chorus, if not the actual words.
I am SO GLAD Tom Petty turned it down. He was right, it was not right for his sound.
Yes, no shade on Tom at all, but his laconic voice would not have worked even with different verses
So you’re saying Tom “backed down”
Oh shit I wanna hear the Tom Petty version now! I feel like it woulda been better
You can’t beat that opening riff that actually sounds like sea gulls on an empty beach. Tom Petty > Don Henley. But this song really IS perfection as is.
It's weird. I started re-listening to this about a month ago. Multiple times a day. And this morning, I thought to myself that this may be the perfect song. I agree with all of you.
One of the best parts of the song for me. I always thought it genius they did that sound in there. Especially with a guitar. It fits the theme perfectly.
It’s worth mentioning that Campbell only wrote the music and presented it to Tom that way. When the instrumental was given to Don he is the one who wrote the words to it.
Petty never made a version of this song because Campbell didn’t write the words and music.
It seems like Mike Campbell had a handful of instrumental demos from his home studio that Tom Petty wasn't interested in at the time of the Southern Accents album. From the Tom Petty biography it seems like there was an awkward moment where the two of them took a cassette down to the car to check how the mix sounded, turned on the radio and there's Don Henley singing over a demo Tom had turned down just a few days before.
The car test. Classic move.
This is absolutely the way music gets heard by artists - it’s never some audiophile system, often it’s too many people crammed into someone’s beater.
I was in an indie band. When we got our first mix from our second CD, we just got in my car and drove around town making notes as we listened
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It’s not “little runaway” it’s a little “runaway”, a song by Del Shannon
It was far more than a few days between the original demo being turned down and the radio episode. Also, the song changed drastically in the interim.
There's a great video of Mike Campbell talking about recording the song. (He has several amazing live sessions he did during covid that are available in YouTube). An underapprecited gem of a musician
Damn now that you mention this, it really could have been a tom petty song, it has the same vibe.
He was inspired by the LinnDrum machine. https://youtu.be/mxBYBnPJfGQ
Wow TIL!
I've always loved that song because it somehow feels uplifting and melancholic at the same time.
this song always gave me a sad it’s over, but glad it happened feeling.
Summer of 69 and the boys are back in town also do this for me
this
It really is a perfect song. It perfectly encapsulates the feeling of young love and growing up and leaving your youth behind.
Try listening to End Of The Innocence off that album. That's what that whole song is about.
End of the Innocence is from his next album ‘End of the Innocence’. Boys of Summer is from Building the Perfect Beast
You are right. Should have known that.
Both great albums. Though I think End wins.
Verses are in a minor key and then it modulates to a major key in the chorus. That’s why it feels like both.
The Way by Fastball utilizes this trick also.
Very very cool example because of how well it supports the lyrics.
The verses are a dark story about a couple that just leaves one day and goes missing and their kids are worried sick trying to find them and presumably never do while the chorus imagines that they’ve found paradise.
It’s a lovely contrast that makes the song so much more profound and interesting.
Makes sense! I've loved this song my who life and never realized that was happening. Thanks. .. not a musician, obviously.
It's that pain of nostalgia and missing being young, but happy you have the memories.
Another is Bruce Springsteen's Glory Days.
“It’s a good songwriting technique to write about something bad with a good-sounding melody, cause if you can get people to feel good about something bad, then you’re bulletproof in life.”
-Bill Wurtz
The seagull sounds done on the Fender Stratocaster are pretty cool production wise
The guitar sound in general is one of my favorites. It's a perfect blend of almost painfully 80's, but with this timeless bluesy twang.
listening to it now, your description is 💯💯💯.
cheers xx
Was that Joe Walsh?
Coupl'a wah wah's
“I don’t need your wah-wah” - George Harrison
I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do
Or Steve Lukather…
That was Danny Kortchmar, Henley’s secret weapon.
Yeah, this and Sunset Grill always put me in a nostalgic, wistful mood. It’s a good place to visit sometimes. This came out when I was a senior in high school and some of the best days of my young life.
Sunset Grill is an absolute masterpiece.
I went to visit Venice Beach a few years ago and it perfectly encapsulates what Don is referencing in the song. Watching the basket people walk around and mumble...LA is one of those places that has a lot of romanticism just like NYC, but it also can be a place of incredible hardship and dysfunction. Walking down the beach seeing the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my life and then looking over and seeing someone begging for money or peddling on the street with nowhere to go just talking to themselves.
I love the way A Month of Sundays fades into Sunset Grill.
As a young kid the song caused me a deep feeling of nostalgia, without even knowing why or the meaning of the song. 40 years later still makes me feel the same way.
Definitely! I actually enjoy hearing in more around now, in the spring. It’s quite cheesy, but if I hear it in September, it makes me a little sad. And I’m totally an indie-rock snob normally…
I remember when I was 20 I lived in this little beach town in Cornwall, UK and there was nothing there except a beach and a hotel. I worked at the hotel and around September the hours of work would start to dry up and people you'd spent all summer with and who you thought you'd be inseperable from all start to leave, and the leaves start turning brown but the sea's still warm and the days still long...
I hear this song in September and I'm right back there again man, I think a part of me always will be
This post makes me nostalgic for an experience I never even had.
Same here. There’s something ethereal about the song that just pokes you in the right spot to feel both uplifted and kinda sad.
Not an easy song to sing. Don had some voice back in the day.
It seems crazy to say, but he is absolutely an underrated vocalist.
As crazy as it is, I believe you’re right. As massive as The Eagles were - and arguably always will be - you don’t hear as much praise for Don’s vocals as I feel you should. Hell, even Glen gets more praise for his vocals (which of course are also incredible, no disrespect there).
Saw the Eagles after covid. He's still got it. Sounded incredible throughout the entire 3-full-hour show.
He certainly did. These days I hear he does lip syncing. Bunch of YouTube videos proving it.
Here's one that goes in depth: https://youtu.be/jJ6DbH-X-L0?si=h2Oqq2RFCmDLKApH
To some extent I understand. Maybe there are certain songs that are harder to sing than others. Maybe he switched between lip syncing and real singing when he's feeling off? I dunno. He's still a fuckin legend regardless.
He's one of those dudes like Sting or Robert Plant - just a true rock tenor.
I remember the summer after it dropped. Driving around in my used Saab. Smoking cigarettes and drinking Bartles and James at home. Ahhhhhhh
With your wayfarers on?
SAAB is gone as well... 'sobs in swedish'
Bartles and James. Dear god. I’m not too proud to admit I liked the peach flavor.
My god... the amount of 80s in this sentence is beautifully astounding.
I like it and the grittier cover by The Ataris is excellent as well. The Boys of Summer as covered by The Ataris
Still one of my favourite punk covers, so effing good!
Definitely. If you have not had the pleasure, check out Goldfinger’s cover of the 80’s new wave standard 99 Luftballoons (aka 99 Red Balloons) by Nina. Another excellent punk cover.
Quick side note on Goldfinger: Aside from them being great live, at least the three times I saw them in the early 2000s, man their studio production is just so good. They really make great sounding albums.
And the reverse of this... Joey Cape of Lagwagon had a band called Bad Astronaut who did a slow cover of NOFX's Linoleum
Well if you want an unusual but utterly excellent cover… bear with me as it requires a bit of context: Way back in the day the Goo Goo Dolls were hard punk local band, usually playing at the Continental in their hometown of Buffalo, New York. The music scene is tight and everyone knows everyone else in town. Another act in town was the Lance Diamond Revue, which was an AMAZING lounge act. The band and Lance were friends and on the first couple of albums they did a collaboration with Lance on vocals for one track. Both are great, but I think this cover of Prince’s Never Take The Place Of Your Man narrowly edging out the one of CCR’s Down On The Corner.
Never Take The Place Of Your Man
The black flag sticker lyric in lieu of the dead head sticker makes me smile every time.
It's perfect for that part. Likening it to something that the person used to be and no longer is. Once a hippie, once a punk rocker.