Patti Smith – Because the Night

“Because the Night” is a rock song written by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith that was first released in 1978 as a single from the Patti Smith Group album, Easter. This version rose to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as No. 5 in the United Kingdom, and helped propel sales of Easter to mainstream success.

Despite her large cult following and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame career (she was inducted in 2007), this was Patti Smith’s only hit, making it an anomaly in her discography, which was aimed at a far more narrow audience.

For many not familiar with Smith’s career or the history of punk, this is the only recognizable song of hers. The producers of the 2013 movie CBGB played to this audience when they portrayed Smith singing this song at the famous club in 1975 – two years before she recorded it and a year before it was written. In the film, Smith is played by Mickey Sumner, who is Sting’s daughter.

The song lay dormant until Springsteen’s producer, Jimmy Iovine, convinced him to give a copy to Patti Smith, who eventually got around to filing in the verses and recording the song. Iovine was also producing Smith’s Easter album and convinced her to record it for the set.

Smith wrote the verses in one night in 1977 while waiting for her boyfriend, Fred “Sonic” Smith, to call. Fred, a founding member of the MC5, lived in Michigan and performed with his band Sonic’s Rendezvous; Patti was in New York. They relied phone calls to stay in touch, but they were both poor and long distance calls were very expensive, so they limited their talks to about once a week, always at night when the rates were cheaper. One night, Patti was expecting his call at 7:30, but it didn’t come. That’s when she played Springsteen’s cassette demo for the first time, listening to it over and over while she wrote lyrics about her yearning love. She got rather specific:

Love is a ring, a telephone

By the time Fred called around midnight, the song was done. This was very unusual for her, as she typically took a lot longer to compose lyrics.

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Patti Smith - Because the Night

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The song was first performed live at a Patti Smith concert at CBGB in New York City on December 30, 1977 (Smith’s 31st birthday), with Springsteen joining on vocals and guitar. Though it was never released on any of Springsteen’s studio albums, in concert beginning with his Darkness Tour Springsteen would often perform the song with his own lyrics.

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