by Katherine Spencer

Lennon & McCartney. Taupin & John. Simon & Garfunkel. Strummer & John. A collaboration of two musical minds penning songs that become commercial hits is not a new or groundbreaking concept by any means, and it certainly wasn’t in the late ‘70s either. But how often do any of us stop to think how different a track would be if only one of them had been left to their own devices to pen the song by themselves. How different would the track have turned out if it had been a solo effort? More importantly, would it have gone on to be embraced by the public and become the success it was if that second voice had never stepped in to contribute their ideas to the evolution of the song?

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“Because the Night” was one of dozens of songs Bruce Springsteen wrote and experimented with that were never completed during the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions. There are different bootleg versions of the song floating around on the ‘net showcasing Springsteen trying to work through different lyric ideas for the song, and during some of the later sessions you can almost hear a layer of frustration in his voice as he continues to chip away at the song in search of the right fit of sound and lyrics. While some internet sources claim Springsteen abandoned the song because he got fed up with how the process was going, the band’s current manager Jon Landau had a different idea when asked about the song in the 2010 documentary The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town :

“One thing about Bruce is, I think, [at the time] if he thought something was going to be a hit, and he didn’t want to be represented by that hit, he’d just leave ‘em off the record.”

This seems to be a much more probable explanation, as Bruce himself admits in the documentary that he felt “there were enough love songs out there that I wanted to do something different”, and that during the early years of his career he didn’t feel he was any good at writing love songs (I’m sure anyone who has heard “She’s the One” from Born to Run or “Rosalita” from The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle would wholeheartedly disagree with that statement). But whatever the reason was in the end, “Because the Night” was left unfinished and destined to be stored in the Springsteen archives. Steven Van Zandt has gone on record over the years (including in The Promise documentary) saying that he believed that the song should have been worked on more and included on the Darkness album.

This seems like a good time for me to make a slightly embarrassing confession: at the time I was asked to participate in the Springsteen series on OWOB, I had never listened to a single note from Darkness on the Edge of Town. I was familiar with Smith’s version of “Because the Night” (which is ultimately why I agreed to take on this piece of the puzzle), but I had no idea that it was originally conceived by Springsteen nor any of the deep history behind the track. I was unsure if coming in with virgin ears was going to work against me while trying to put this together, but it actually turned out for the best. Coming in with no preconceived notion of the album or its themes allowed me to listen to Darkness and properly consider whether “Because the Night” really could have fit somewhere within its track list. The short and very clear answer is no. While I’ve now listened to the album from start to finish at least two dozen times in the past two months, it only took one listen for it to be very apparent that “Because the Night”, in whatever lyrical form Springsteen would have settled with, would have never fit in with the rest of the album. Although I don’t think Springsteen or anyone in the E-Street Band had the goal of writing a concept album when they were putting together Darkness, there is a certain mindset and attitude that runs through the entire album, from the opening drum intro of “Badlands” to the fade-out of piano and percussion in “Darkness on the Edge of Town”. As far as I’m concerned, the lyrics and feel of “Because the Night” would have undoubtedly disrupted the flow of the album, and Springsteen’s decision to leave it off was the right call.

When it was clear that Springsteen no longer had any use for “Because the Night”, Darkness engineer Jimmy Iovine felt the potential of the song was too good for it to be thrown aside. Iovine, who had aspirations to begin producing artists and albums, was also working with the Patti Smith Group in another part of the Record Plant recording studio in New York where Darkness was being recorded. Iovine didn’t feel like the Group had come up with the song that was worthy of being the next single, so he brought a demo tape of “Because the Night” to Smith to see if she had any interest in it. ­Initially she was disinterested in the song, but she explained what brought her back to it in The Promise documentary:

“I was having a long-distance romance with Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith [guitarist of MC5], who later became my husband. He was supposed to call me at night, and [one night] I waited for him to call for hours. I thought ‘well, I’ll listen to that darn song’. It was so accessible, it had an anthemic tone…I kept letting it loop and play, and I still tried to resist it, but I filled in the blanks. And in the blanks, it tells the story of me waiting for Fred to call, and of my love for Fred…By the time he called, I had written my share of the lyrics.”

The Patti Smith Group - “Because the Night (original studio version from Easter [1978])

The Patti Smith Group reworked the backing track, stripping it down to a much more subtle sound compared to Springsteen’s demo, and recorded it. Iovine and Smith agreed that it should be the lead off single for the Group’s album, and “Because the Night” was released a month after the release of Easter to great success. Cracking the Billboard Top 20 and reaching #5 on the UK music charts, “Because the Night” became the Patti Smith Group’s most successful single and propelled the sales of Easter. The song is credited for helping make the album more accessible to mainstream audiences, something that the Patti Smith Group had failed to do in the past with their eclectic and experimental sounds.

Although Springsteen and the E Street Band never recorded the song, they did perform it live beginning on the tour following the release of Darkness. However, instead of “covering” the Patti Smith Group’s version of the song, the band instead used a variation of the original arrangement and lyrics Springsteen had conceived for the first few tours post-Darkness on the Edge of Town. As the band continued to tour over the years, Springsteen would slightly modify the lyrics in live shows (they were generally improvised alterations), which led to debates among fans over the years of what exactly the original lyrics of the song were. If you’re curious to see how many different versions Bruce has performed over the years, a short list of some of the lyric variations can be found at Springsteen Lyrics (note that there are bootleg copies of concerts featuring “Because the Night” where Springsteen’s lyrics are different from one of these versions by only three or four words; they have not received their own entry in the database).

“Because the Night” (live December 15, 1978 at Winterland, San Francisco, CA; unreleased)

When doing a side-by-side comparison of Springsteen vs. Smith lyrics, you can see how, as Springsteen observes in The Promise documentary, “[Patti] turned it in to this beautiful, deep love song…the intensity, the personalness, the deep love she put in to it…turned it into a gift”. When Springsteen wrote the original, he stuck to his trademark writing style of the working man’s point of view, capturing the image of coming home at the end of a long day to seek the love your partner. Smith, on the other hand, digs deeper into the overwhelming emotions love can bring and manages to capture a much more universal message. Her lyrics eloquently sum up that feeling of being reunited with your partner, whether it’s been after a long time apart or just simply coming together to the same place at the end of the day.