We think of them as legends now, but the bands and artists involved in the New York punk scene of the 1970s didn’t get much recognition in their time. The Ramones, Television, and The New York Dolls had a local following but never made it into the big time like their latter contemporaries like Blondie and Talking Heads who went on to global fame.
There is one artist, however, who initially didn’t want to sing who had a hit but didn’t get back to the heights of the big breakthrough. The artist needed some help from their producer who luckily was working with a genuine hitmaker. This week The Beat Marches On to 2nd March 1978 when Patti Smith released Because the Night.
As mentioned in the introduction Smith didn’t want to sing at first, she was a poet. Quite a successful poet releasing a couple of books. She looked at the theatre co-writing and co-starring in Cowboy Mouth with playwright Sam Shepard, but it was when she saw the New York Dolls at Max’s Kansas City in 1973 that she decided to write songs rather than poetry.
Smith and her band started to play in late 1974 with Television at the then-new club CBGB. Before long the record labels came calling and Arista Records signed the band a year later. The first album, Horses, came towards the end of 1975 and reached the top 50 on the Billboard album charts.
With Radio Ethiopia released a year later, the singer was starting to gather momentum, but then disaster happened. While performing in Tampa, Florida she fell off the stage and broke two vertebrae in her back. She had to take some time off to recuperate which killed the momentum in its tracks.
When Patti got back into the studio in 1978, her producer (the now music mogul Jimmy Iovine) handed her a tape with a song on it which had been started by Bruce Springsteen but was unfinished. He had the music, the chorus and the vocal melodies for the verses but couldn’t get the song together. Iovine, who was also producing Bruce’s latest album, was convinced it was a hit. The Boss wasn’t so sure as it wasn’t fitting in with the theme of the album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and he didn’t want to write another love song.
Undeterred by Springsteen not wanting to sing it, Iovine asked him if he could give it to Patti Smith to have a go at writing the lyrics, to which he agreed. The Boss admitted in a later interview if it wasn’t for Patti then the song wouldn’t have seen the light of day.
Smith was hesitant at first as the music was written by someone else. Unsure of what her fans would think of her authenticity, and authenticity is a big thing in the early punk days, as the song wasn’t written by Patti and her band. Iovine was convincing though and she took the tape.
One night in her New York apartment she was waiting for a phone call from her boyfriend and future husband Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, formerly of MC5 and now in Sonic Rendezvous, who was in his hometown of Detroit. The singer played the Springsteen demo as a distraction to start but by the end of the night, the verses were completed. She admitted this is unique for her as normally it takes a long time to compose lyrics.
On completing the demo Smith played it to her band and Iovine, who added their spin to the already-written music. The producer’s instinct was right it was going to be a bona fide hit.
They put Because the Night on the next album, Easter, and it was the lead single off the album. The impact was almost instant as the song got huge radio play as soon as the stations got hold of the single. It reached the top five in the UK charts and 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. This would be the only time Smith would break the top 20 of the American charts.
It’s unsure whether it was due to the chart success of the song, but Springsteen did perform the track live on occasion, a version can be heard on his live album, Live 1975-85, there have been some instances when they have joined each other on stage when their paths have crossed during touring. The Boss did record a studio version but not until 2010 on the album The Promise.
This wasn’t the only time Jimmy Iovine had convinced two popular musicians to collaborate. In 1981 Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers collaborated on the song Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. This time it was a duet by the two singers and helped launch Nicks’s solo career.
Sometimes it is that suggestion by a producer or an engineer in the studio for one artist to have that hit. It can help both parties as it can help the career of a young struggling upstart and give a new fanbase for the original songwriter. All it takes is a little bit of belief from someone in the studio.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
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The websites used for research were:
Behind The Song: “Because The Night” by Patti Smith & Bruce Springsteen (americansongwriter.com)
Because The Night by Patti Smith – Songfacts
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