This is the seventh post of My Top 100 Tracks
When Patti Smith has come up in conversations in the past and people have said 'Oh, yeah, Because the Night, I love that song', I've always felt superior and sneery. It's her most commercially successful song, but she wrote lots of other great ones, less poppy and amazing. In fact, she didn't even write this one (I thought). But when I made my list of my top 100 tracks and I was thinking about Patti Smith, what rose to the top out of her songs. Because the Night. I take my silent sneeriness back.
In fact, the song is special. And she did partly write it, it turns out on further research. In 1978 Bruce Springsteen was recording the album Darkness on the Edge of Town. A recording engineer on the album was Jimmy Iovine. He was also the producer of Patti Smith's 1978 album Easter. Bruce had half-written Because the Night, with a tune and chorus, but no verses. It wasn't going to make the Darkness album and Jimmy Iovine persuaded Springsteen to give the song to Patti Smith. Patti took it and wrote some verses. So in effect she co-wrote the song with Springsteen. In fact, the substance of the verses are hers. And this is obvious if you listen to them. They are 100% Patti.
When Springsteen finished writing his version of the song, it was, of course, about a blue-collar guy doing backbreaking work in the day, but at night being free of The Man, and the night being for lovers. The night being for lovers in the chorus was in the version Patti received but she wrote her verses about her then soon-to-be husband Fred Smith, guitarist with the amazing MC5. She'd had a tape of Springsteen's song for a while but while waiting for a delayed evening telephone call from Fred she listened to it for the first time and started to construct the lyrics. Hence the line 'Love is a ring, a telephone'. When the call came she had written the lyrics to the song.
There is a great article in Billboard on the song and how it came about, with contributions from some of the key participants.
Because the Night is on her album Easter which came out in 1978. I was 14 that year and several albums were released in 1978 which led me back to other albums by artists. Springsteen's Darkness was the first I heard by him and it led me back to the classic LP Born to Run from 1976. I had heard some old classics by Dylan like Blowin' in the Wind etc but not much and his 1978 Street Legal sent me to look back at his other 1970s albums Desire and Blood on the Tracks, my favourite Dylan albums to this day. And Easter in 1978 led me to delve back and unearth Horses, Patti's most acclaimed and best album, released in 1975.
Here is Patti singing a relatively restrained Because the Night in 1978 on the Old Grey Whistle test and in concert in Cincinnati the same year and before it had been released on record.
In 1979, aged 15 I went to see Patti play at Wembley Arena in London. She had just released the album Wave which got some critical reviews, unfairly I thought. She did what she always did, went her own way, and people who celebrated that approach didn't like it when it went somewhere they didn't like. Music journalists could be so nasty. I think I went to the gig alone, but I've thought that about other 1970s gigs and old school-friends have told me they went with me. Patti wore black trousers and a white shirt, I remember it clearly. Robin Denselow of The Guardian was there and wrote a critical review of the concert. Patti was my heroine and I felt I should stand up for her. I sent him a letter defending her performance (a letter on paper; no internet or email then). To my surprise I got a postcard from him in reply. I can't remember what he said but it was friendly. It was a nice touch by him.
Patti Smith was hugely important in my life as a teenager, someone I felt I connected with and an inspiration. I lived in a very quiet conservative home counties town and went to an extremely conservative establishment school. I rejected all the values of these places, mostly quietly. Patti was no way any part of the establishment, including not of the rock and artistic establishment. She was part of the punk rising at the time, in her case in part in terms of her music, although many of her songs were straight rock, but also punk in that she just did her own thing in general unbothered by convention. She just goes where she wants to with her music. There are manic poems, chants, all sorts. My teachers would have hated her individuality and unconventionality. I loved that I knew that her unconventionality was deep and clever and that their rejection of her would have been ignorant.
She did not conform to stereotypes of what women, especially pop stars, should look like at that time, often dressing in men's clothes, no great glamour or glossy makeup, and famously appearing on the cover of Easter with armpit hair showing and her vest on inside out. Her appearance was part of what was punk about her. As a teenager, I had big posters on my bedroom walls of icons, Bob Dylan, Debby Harry (who didn't have a poster of Debby Harry on their bedroom wall), Patti Smith etc. One day my Mum came in and asked who I liked the most and I immediately said Patti. It was a no-brainer. My Mum said irritably that she had thought that would be the case. I was a bit surprised by her annoyed reaction as she was generally non-judgmental and open-minded. I wasn't sure what disappointed her. But I think it was that she wasn't keen on me preferring a woman who in this picture looked unconventional and a bit unfeminine.
Patti started off doing poetry performances at venues and had taken Lenny Kaye to provide electric guitar backing. One thing led to another and she formed a band and became a rock singer. Kaye has been a stalwart by her side through the decades and still plays in her band. Patti combined poetry with rock, and as a lover of literature and poetry I took this on really positively. I still have some battered old 1972 paper pamphlets of her poetry that I used to read through trying to decipher them. Two, Seventh Heaven and A Useless Death, appear to be from limited editions of 300 signed by the author. I was curious about Rimbaud and the other French writers she was interested in, although I found their stuff very difficult to make out.
Patti Smith is more generally an artist, not just in music and poetry, also books, other art, photography, and acting. There is fascinating lyrical imagery in her songs, including religious and sexual, and she lived like a New York bohemian, with others of the same ilk, most notably Robert Mapplethorpe. Her book Just Kids about her and Mapplethorpe and her 1960s and '70s life in Manhattan is one of the best books I have ever read and she has written many other fascinating books. Despite her interest in often high and difficult art, there isn't an ounce of pretentiousness in Patti Smith. It's just what she's into.
When you see her talking Patti has a humble and kind way and feels caring and responsible to her fans. She has a Substack profile where she records little videos and writings talking to fans. I hate Substack because they host fascist blogs and I can't understand why left-wing people use it when there are easy more ethical alternatives (some have left). Patti has two tiers on the site where if you pay more you get more and I don't like this system where people who can afford it get more. But I forgive Patti, probably only her. Her little simple kind video messages are lovely. They are an oasis of niceness in a horrible world, but with the horrible world often referenced.
Patti is political, in the past supporting Nader and the Greens, speaking out against American wars, supporting Democrat candidates against Republicans, and raising the issue of climate change. Recently, she has spoken on the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Gaza. One of her well-known songs is the call to action People Have the Power, which she wrote with Fred.
I followed Patti for the first 4 albums, Horses (1975), Radio Ethiopia (1976), Easter (1978), and Wave (1979). Then she took a break to raise her family and because, she said, the band had done what they wanted to. Things moved on for me also and I haven't listened to that much of her music after she came back and started recording again. I've heard the odd bit here and there and will listen more. But my Patti Smith is the 1975-79 one and I'm fine with that. There are some great videos of Because the Night (some already linked to above). The song starts with just piano and Patti singing before the drums kick off and the band comes in. There is a nice short guitar solo in the middle. I love her deep voice and Patti always gives it her all, as you can see in the videos. She is a role model to many other musicians.
This video appears to feature the recorded version dubbed onto a video of Patti singing the song live in 1978. It seems a mad idea but it works for me. There is a video of Bruce Springsteen playing his version in 1978. He also hardly holds back. Here is Patti singing the song in 2000 and here in 2016 in a tribute to Springsteen with an emotional Bruce looking on. Bruce and Patti have sung the song together. Here Bruce just casually ambles on stage to play it with her in 2018. And here they do it with U2, Bono saying it's the song his band wished they had written.
Because the Night, the Patti Smith lyrics:
Take me now, baby, here as I am
Pull me close, try and understand
Desire is hunger, is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed
Come on now, try and understand
The way I feel when I'm in your hands
Take my hand, come undercover
They can't hurt you now
Can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
Have I doubt when I'm alone
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
Come on now try and understand
The way I feel under your command
Take my hand as the sun descends
They can't touch you now
They can't hurt you now
Can't hurt you now
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
With love we sleep
With doubt the vicious circle
Turns and burns
Without you, oh, I cannot live
Forgive, the yearning burning
I believe it's time, too real to feel
So touch me now, touch me now, touch me now
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
Because tonight there are two lovers
If we believe, in the night we trust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to love
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to love
'Cause we believe tonight we're lovers
'Cause we believe, in the night we trust
Because the night belongs to lovers