page_title: 11 (Bryan Adams album)
section_title: Writing and themes
hierarchical_section_title: 11 (Bryan Adams album) / Writing and themes
caption_attribution_description: Bryan Adams
context_page_description: 11 is the eleventh studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. The album was released by Polydor Records on March 17, 2008. 11 was the first release of new Adams material since Colour Me Kubrick in 2005 and the first studio album in four years since Room Service. Adams, Jim Vallance, Eliot Kennedy, Gretchen Peters, Trevor Rabin and Robert John "Mutt" Lange received producing and writing credits. Similar to Adams' previous material, the themes in 11 are mainly based on love, romance, and relationships. 11 received generally mixed reviews from contemporary music critics.
  Three songs were released from the album in various forms: "I Thought I'd Seen Everything", "Tonight We Have the Stars" and "She's Got a Way", of which all were released internationally. "I Thought I'd Seen Everything" was the only one to have any lasting effects on the music chart, reaching mostly the Top 50, Top 100 and Top 200 in Europe and Canada. Adams was nominated for a Juno Award in the category "Best Artist" in 2009 for this record.
context_section_description: When the writing season for 11 had ended, Adams and his companions had written 30 songs. After a selection process, 19 of these songs were removed, however some of them made it to the deluxe edition released later in 2008. The first single, "I Thought I'd Seen Everything" was written in 2007, and went through two or three changes before Adams made the finishing touches. Originally, it had another title, and a different melody, and as Adams later put it; "in the course of listening to the music and spending time with it, you do end up changing it.
  Adams hadn't worked together on an album with Vallance since the late-1980s. They teamed up after, as Adams said, "throwing ideas back and forth" from 2003 until the album was released. Vallance would send MP3 audio files by e-mail to Adams during the recording seasons. Adams would then add some elements to them and send them back. They continued doing this until a song was completed; Vallance claimed it took longer for them to write songs than during their previous collaborations, but felt the end product was just as good.
  The main themes in the album, in Adams words are; "searching for something". The lyrical meaning behind track number four, "Oxygen" is what a person needs in order to survive. In other words, "The person you are with is giving you the air you breathe", and that people in general "need each other 100%." The album's first single, "I Thought I'd Seen Everything" is about keeping an open mind." The theme of "Broken Wings" is about "somebody who taught me how to fly", a metaphor which for "putting your trust in somebody who can give you faith and the belief that you can succeed." "Something to Believe In" is based upon the affirmation of life and faith, while "Walk on By" warns the listener of distrustfulness. As with other albums, according to Adams, he likes to end the album with a melancholic song, such as "Something to Believe In" in 11, it's not the last track however. "Flowers Gone Wild" touches on the same theme as two songs he wrote in the early 1980s, "Cover Girl" and "The Best Is Yet To Come", are based upon the murdered playboy bunny Dorothy Stratten. But also people with misplaced emotions and their unfulfilled needs, which are pushed forth by the media, which Adams says, leads people to lose their "sense of decency". Adams explained further; "It's a sort of new love affair with an old story, devouring our celebrities and leaving them when we are done."
caption: Adams co-wrote all songs on the album (as seen during his 2009 concert in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada).
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