Today’s classic night song of the day is “Into the Night” by Benny Mardones. This one was a hit for Mr. Mardones twice. Initially released in June of 1980, it peaked at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100. Prompted by a “where are they now?” segment on an Arizona radio station in 1989, Polydor re-released the single and it got all the way up to #20 on both the Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary charts. Not bad for a song that brought with it more than a little controversy.
Thanks to the lyrics that start “She’s just sixteen years old, leave her alone they said,” along with the accompanying video that showed the 33 year-old singer making out on a flying carpet with an obviously teenaged girl, many folks thought the song was about an underaged relationship. That didn’t go over too well back then and even less so today.
But that’s not what the song was about. Mr. Mardones wrote the song about three teenaged girls who lived down the street from him and whose father had walked out on them. (Ran away with a chorus girl, no less.) Mardones felt sorry for the family and helped the mother pay the rent and gave the kids money to run errands for him and clean his apartment. The 16 year-old daughter, Heidi, earned $50 a week from Mr. Mardones to walk his dog, Zanky. One day Mr. Mardones was with his songwriting partner, Robert Tepper, when Heidi came to get Zanky, and Mr. Tepper made a crude remark about the girl. Mr. Mardones took offense and… well, I’ll let him tell his own story:
“So one night Robert Tepper and I were up writing songs… And in she walks, 16 years old, dressed for school in a miniskirt, little stacked heels, adorable, 16-going-on-21. She said, ‘You’ve been up all night?’ and of course it was obvious. I said, ‘Yeah, we have.’ She says, ‘Okay, come on, Zanky,’ and she walks the dog out. When she leaves and goes out the door, my partner goes, ‘Oh, my God.’ I said, ‘Hey, Bob. She’s just 16 years old, leave her alone.’ And literally five minutes later I said, ‘Play that lick again, Bobby.’ So he played the lick and I went (singing), ‘she’s just 16 years old, leave her alone, they say.’ Then I thought about her dad and what he had done, and that’s where I got ‘Separated by fools who don’t know what love is yet.’ The chorus was, ‘you’re too young for me, but if I could fly, I’d pick you up and take you into the night and show you love like you’ve never seen.’ Then the verse ‘It’s like having it all and letting it show. It’s like having a dream where nobody has a heart. It’s like having it all and watching it fall apart.’ Because his success was not the family’s success; it was just his. ‘I can’t measure my love there’s nothing compared to it’ —it was all about the abandonment of this family and this 16-year-old girl.”
That doesn’t explain the somewhat-romantic video, complete with that heavy making out at the end, but hey, it otherwise sounds plausible.
“Into the Night” was Mr. Mardones’ only hit, making him a one-hit wonder. He left the music business in 1981 when Polydor dropped him after a few failed albums, then spiraled into substance abuse. He later got his act together, however, and resumed recording and performing. He passed away in 2020 at age 73 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
And here’s your daily bonus video of the day, Benny Mardones’ somewhat creepy music video for “Into the Night.” Hey, whatever it takes to sell records, right?
