The No. 1 Song On August 15, 1991 Sounds Even More Devoted Today

On August 15, 1991, the No. 1 song in the country was the same track that had been ensconced at the top of the Hot 100 since late July, where it stayed until mid-September. That song was Bryan Adams' majestic and chivalric power ballad of undying love, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," which declares utmost devotion to a romantic partner. It fit in well with the soundtrack of the 1991 movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," reflecting the relationship between the titular rogue (played by Kevin Costner) and his beloved Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). 

Throughout the song, Adams, in character, announces his intention to "fight" for the love if necessary. In real life, he had to fight for "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" at every step of the process. Here's how a song that few people believed in wound up becoming not only one of the biggest songs of the summer of 1991 but one of the top hits of all time.

It's definitely not one of Bryan Adams' biggest career regrets, but the artists who passed on appearing on the "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" soundtrack may still wonder what could've been. Michael Kamen made the movie's score, and he thought that any love theme should be based on a melodic line he'd written and performed from the character Marian's point of view.

The first two female singers he approached, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, declined. "Kate didn't feel it was for her, after thinking about it for a while; Annie wanted to sing it in Olde English, and was busy making a record of her own," Kamen said in "The Billboard Book of No. 1 Hits." A duet by Chicago's Peter Cetera and British pop star Julia Fordham didn't gel, and when Lisa Stansfield, a '90s musician we completely forgot about, got on board, her Arista Records boss Clive Davis wouldn't allow her to record for A&M Records.

The job eventually fell to pop-rocker and human hit factory Bryan Adams and producer Mutt Lange, best known for aiding the rise of Def Leppard. Adams oversaw a new arrangement and the composition of new lyrics but had a creative disagreement with Michael Kamen, who disliked the piano intro, feeling it was too contemporary of an instrument to be used in a movie set in the 1100s, preferring instead mandolins and lutes. Adams got his way, but Kamen exercised his muscle by placing the song, given the flowery and gushing title "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)," extremely late in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" — after most of the credits had started to roll.

That placement didn't seem to matter. Bolstered by the blockbuster popularity of "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" spent a record-setting (since broken) 16 straight weeks at No. 1 in the U.K. and seven weeks atop the Hot 100 in the U.S. That was enough to land it the honor of Billboard's most successful song of 1991.