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'The Boys Of Summer' is a classic solo song from the pen of Eagles drummer/vocalist Don Henley... Given the euphoric trance treatment, it was a big No2 success for Mallorcan DJ Sammy in March 2003 as the follow-up to the multi-million selling 'Heaven'.Well, you can't accuse him of messing with a winning formula. After the huge success of the Bryan Adams cover, he not only covered another AOR song but another one from the very same year, 1985. Coincidentally, this was one of two renditions of the song to chart in the UK that year, with US punk-poppers taking their version to the Top 50.
Interestingly, whilst the Ataris felt the need to update the lyric, replacing the "Deadhead sticker" with a "Black Flag sticker", Sammy and vocalist Loona leave it untouched; even if they knew or cared that it was a reference to the Grateful Dead, they would have guessed that their audience wouldn't. For this version isn't really about expressing the soul-searching and nostalgia of Henley's original, the lyric is there to evoke a song that's already familiar to people. Which, of course, is a means of generating nostalgia itself, but of a less specific kind, and a kind less personal to the record makers. Doubtless in due course people will be feeling nostalgia for this version, either because they heard it first or because it has an association with events in their own life. If you're one of those people and you're reading this because you searched for the song on Google or whatever the popular search engine is by the time you see this, hello.
It doesn't stimulate a lot for me, I must admit. I remember hearing it on the radio a lot in 2003 and not particularly liking it, but then I've never loved the original either. I haven't heard it a lot since but it's a serviceable version if this is what you want.
Also appearing on: Now 53, 55
Available on: Girls' Night Out
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