“This Night Won’t Last Forever” (Michael Johnson)

Your long-forgotten classic soft rock song of the day is “This Night Won’t Last Forever,” by Michael Johnson. This mellow little pop song was released in July of 1979 and peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart. If you don’t remember the title, just give it a listen; you know the song, even if you haven’t heard it in awhile.

There were a lot of tunes like “This Night Won’t Last Forever” back in the ’70s, of which this one, peaking at the very end of the decade, is one of the last. These tunes were characterized at the time as “adult contemporary” or “soft rock;” today you’re likely to hear them on the mellow The Bridge channel on SiriusXM satellite radio. They’re not quite yacht rock (although some might characterize them as such) and they’re not quite folk; they’re more piano driven than guitar driven, with lots of sweetening from strings and similar instruments. Chances are the singer wore a Members Only jacket suit and linen shirt. That was the thing back then.

The lyrics tell the tale of a guy lamenting the loss of his girlfriend, telling himself that the way he feels won’t last forever. It includes the wonderful rhyme “So pardon me for my disposition, wish I didn’t have to sit and listen.” I also like the very-70s line, “I wonder who is taking her home,” because that happened a lot back then.

Interestingly, the band Sawyer Brown had a big country hit with a cover of this tune in 1997. Their version of “This Night Won’t Last Forever,” which was very faithful to the original, went to #6 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

“This Night Won’t Last Forever” was not written by Mr. Johnson, but rather by Bill LaBounty and Roy Freeland. Mr. LaBounty recorded it first, in 1978, but his version (which Mr. Johnson copied to the note) only reached the bottom (#65) of the Hot 100. A singer/songwriter himself, “This Night Won’t Last Forever” was the most successful of Mr. LaBounty’s songs.

Michael Johnson, who was definitely not the similarly-named Michael Jackson, was also a singer/songwriter, even if he didn’t write this particular tune. His biggest pop hit, which he also didn’t write, was “Bluer Than Blue,” which charted at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart) in 1978. He also had a minor hit with 1978’s “Almost Like Being in Love” (#32 on the Hot 100) and recorded several big country hits, including “Gotta Learn to Love You” (#12 on Billboard’s Country chart in 1986), “Give Me Wings” (#1 Country in 1986), “The Moon is Still Over Her Shoulder (#1 Country in 1987), “Crying Shame” (#4 Country in 1987), “I Will Whisper Your Name” (#7 Country in 1988), and “That’s That” (#9 Country in 1988). He kept writing and recording, to lesser success, up until his death in 2017, aged 72.