Song Review: Bryan Adams – Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman
Move over Ricky Martin, here comes Bry- oh just kidding. The Latin explosion of the late 90s was a real, authentic, notable moment, but before that, flamenco flourishes in Anglo pop music were mostly a novelty, especially when deployed by a balladeer like Bryan Adams. And no amount of Spanish guitar could save this track from becoming yet another work-for-hire theme for another forgotten 90s movie soundtrack.
The Spanish-tinged production (courtesy of Mutt Lange, hilariously) likely has something to do with the movie the song is tied to – the Marlon Brando / Johnny Depp rom-com Don Juan DeMarco. I haven’t seen this movie, but I have read its plot synopsis on Wikipedia, and it sounds very, very dumb. It has a 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it made money at the box office, so perhaps Brando’s performance gives it the gravitas it probably needed. Apparently, however, Depp has a fake Spanish accent, so yeah…. doesn’t sound great!
Adams, for his part in his latest Hollywood escapade, does not pretend to be a Spanish person. The results would have been undeniably terrible, but at least interesting. Instead we get another plodding movie ballad from the raspy Canadian crooner; the effect is the same as that of his previous #1 songs. I’m not sure if I could tell them apart without that flamenco guitar, to be quite honest. The main melodic hook is memorable, but overused, and the song drags along far too long, with Adams’s overwrought, wannabe Rod Stewart delivery fully at the forefront. The lyrics describe getting to know a woman so intimately that you can “taste her” and “see your unborn children in her eyes.” As the kids would say, they are cringe af.
Tom Breihan’s Number Ones column revealed to me that Tori Amos and Michael Stipe were considered for a song for Don Juan DeMarco instead of Adams, and they even wrote and recorded one that has never been released. Oh, what we could have had.
Score: 3/10
