When I was fourteen, I saw the Kevin Costner movie, ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, for the first time. (Back then, KC's inconsistent accent in the movie didn't bother me; it didn't even seem weird. That was then.)
To say that I absolutely adored that movie would be an understatement. The truth is, I was obsessed with it. It changed my whole life, in part, because it was while watching that movie that I fell in love for the first time... with Christian Slater.
Bryan Adam's power ballad, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You", was part of the soundtrack for ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES. It is not a coincidence that I was also obsessed with that song. If I were to dig through my enormous box of notes and junk from high school, I'm about 97.4% sure that the "Time Capsule" note I wrote to myself declares my favorite musician to be Bryan Adams, and my favorite song to be "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You." (I believe, also, that my other favorite song was "Right Here, Right Now" by Jesus Jones, while my favorite bands were Guns N Roses and Nirvana. Oh, yeah.)
If it were possible to make out with a song, I would have made out with "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" every minute of every single day. Lines very near the end made me absolutely die every time I heard them:
Yeah, I would fight for you
I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you
Yeah, I'd die for yoooooooooooooou.
*contented sigh*
(Yeah. You're feeling it, too, aren't you?)
I remember being fourteen and lying on my bed in our Lakewood house, staring up at my net full of stuffed animals that hung from the ceiling while I listened to my Bryan Adams tapes and thought that there could be nothing better than having a boy (ahem, Christian Slater) sing about feeling (or at the very least, just speak about feeling) that way about me.
Tonight, The Song came on the radio while I was driving home from work. It's been ages since I've heard it, and I have to admit, I still kind of... love it. My heart went all crazy and I felt swoon-ish for the duration of the song.
And then it was over, and I realized that deep down, I find "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus to be a million times more romantic.
(No, I'm really not sure what any of this says about me.)