Back in the 1970s punk scene, Patti Smith was a big deal; her 1975 debut album Horses established her cred and put her on every punkster’s radar. She hit the mainstream three years later when she recorded “Because the Night,” a song she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen. Released in March of 1978, “Because the Night” hit #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #10 on the Cash Box Top 100. It’s today’s classic song of the day.
The story goes that Bruce had written the melody and a handful of words for “Because the Night” in early 1977. That was enough for the Boss to record an early version of the song with the E Street Band on June 1, 1977, with Bruce mumbling his way through those lyrics that weren’t written yet.
Springsteen kept plugging at the song for the next four months but just couldn’t finish it. Enter soon-to-be-legendary producer Jimmy Iovine, who was working with Patti Smith at NYC’s Atlantic Studios, down the hall from where Bruce and the boys were recording songs for the Darkness on the Edge of Town album. Let’s let Mr. Iovine take it from there:
“Now, Bruce was very understanding and very flexible, because he realized that this was my first real break as a producer. Anyway, one night whilst we were lounging around the Hotel Navarro in New York I told Bruce I desperately wanted a hit with Patti, that she deserved one. He agreed. As he had no immediate plans to put ‘Because the Night’ on an album, I said why not give it to Patti. Bruce replied, ‘If she can do it, she can have it.'”
Well, she could do it so Bruce let her have it. Ms. Smith listened to the E Street Band’s early recording of the song, added her own lyrics, and you know the rest.
That said, Springsteen never really gave up on the song. He ended up performing “Because the Night” during his Darkness Tour, but with his own lyrics instead of those written by Ms. Smith. (The following video is Bruce and the E Street Band performing an eight-minute version of “Because the Night” live in Houston in 1978.)
In 1993, Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs performed an acoustic version of “Because the Night” for an episode of the MTV Unplugged television program. Released as a single, the Maniacs’ version went all the way to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #9 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, making it the group’s highest-charting single.
When all is said and done, however, I prefer Patti Smith doing this one. With that in mind, today’s daily bonus video of the day is the Patti Smith Group performing “Because the Night” live on the April 3, 1978, episode of BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test. Powerful.
