Charlie Kelly's first serious music endeavor involved a character known as the "The Nightman". It was his belief that his life as someone innocent and naive required the Nightman. The song is about the Nightman "coming into him" to endow him with much needed manliness and power.

The first lyrics to the Nightman were written in the Paddy's Pub office. As Charlie is largely illiterate, the lyrics in written form appeared as a page of child-like hieroglyphics or doodles.

Mac and Frank's band Chemical Toilet were the first to attempt the song with Charlie, but they determined that the content of the song was about a rape of Charlie in the night and decided that they find a new frontman, Dennis Reynolds.

Charlie went on to form a band with Dennis Reynolds and, with Dennis' assistance, created The Nightman's nemesis: The Dayman. Their band was called Electric Dream Machine. The music stylings were reminiscent of glam rock/ electropop prevalent in the 80's.

This Nightman/Dayman hybrid made its first public appearance at Paddy's Pub. Electric Dream Machine was heckled and booed by the drunken crowd. ("Sweet Dee's Dating a Retarded Person")​

Charlie went on to create a stage musical centered around The Nightman called The Nightman Cometh. Mac played the role of the Nightman.("The Nightman Cometh") At the onset of the episode Charlie is questioned by the gang about the reasons for writing the episode in the theme of, "who are we doing it versus?" Charlie responds with, "I wrote a musical to wrote [sic] a musical." This is foreshadowing to the end of the episode, where in Charlie uses the musical as an opportunity to propose to the waitress. Throughout the rehersal Frank frustrates Charlie with his pronunciation of "Boy's Soul," which Frank is incorrectly pronouncing as "Boy's Hole."

When Charlie writes a song called "I Like Paddy's Pub" to help Paddy's win an award, the rest of The Gang is impressed, particularly because, as Dennis says, "I didn't catch any rape references, nothing about spiders, nothing about ghouls...", which would seem to most directly be a reference to this song, as well as the other songs in "The Nightman Cometh" later. The song he plays later, with the much less friendly title "Go Fuck Yourselves", does start off talking about a spider, however. ("The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award")

When asked "Name something people are afraid of" on Family Fight, Charlie insists that the answer is Nightman. Frank answers with Clowns to get the top answer, although Nightman is on the board with one point. ("The Gang Goes on Family Fight")

Nightman, sneaky and mean Spider inside my dreams, I think I love you You make me wanna cry You make me wanna die I love you I love you I love you I love you, Nightman Every night you come into my room and pin me down with your strong arms you pin me down and I try to fight you you come inside me you fill me up and I become the Nightman It's just two men sharing the night It might seem wrong But it's just right! It's just two men sharing each other It's just two men like loving brothers One on top and one on bottom One inside and one is out One is screaming he's so happy The other's screaming a passionate shout It's the Nightman The feelings so wrong and right, man They're feeling so wrong and right, man I can't fight you, man When you come inside me And pin me down with your strong hands And I become The Night The passionly passionate Nightman

Charlie's Spray Paint Improvisation [ edit | edit source ]

They took you, Nightman And you don't belong to them They left me in a world of darkness Without your sexy hands And I miss you Nightman, so bad...

The Metaphor of the Nightman [ edit | edit source ]

The lyrics of The Nightman, such as Every night you come into my room and you pin me down and I try to fight you/ you come inside me, clearly describe a rape, as everyone but Charlie can see ("Sweet Dee's Dating a Retarded Person"), ("The Nightman Cometh"). It is heavily implied that Charlie is trying to process the sexual abuse he endured as a child by the hands of his uncle Jack Kelly.

Jack has proven to be a pedophile pervert several times:

Also, Charlie's behavior around Jack indicates that Jack molested him:

When Charlie gets kicked out and wants to stay at his mother's house, she reveals she has rented out his room to Jack, like she used to do for a while when Charlie was a kid. Jack talks about "palling around", "getting nuts" and "going crazy" like they used to be, but Charlie is extremely uncomfortable, shying away from Jack's touches, telling him he doesn't want to do anything with Jack in his room, and he would just be wide awake the whole night just like when he was a kid. Jack then asks him if he has ever seen wrestling on TV, to which Charlie replies "I am well aware of what wrestling is, it's just not what uncles do to their nephews! I'm outta here!", and storms off. (" The Great Recession ")

Charlie shies away from Jack when he touches him, telling him to stop (" Dennis Gets Divorced ")

Jack keeps touching Charlie even though Charlie warns him to stop (" Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy ")

Dennis even outright said Charlie has been molested by Jack (" Time's Up for the Gang ")

Further signs that the Nightman is in fact Jack