Writers: Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen
Producer: Jimmy Iovine
Recorded: Winter 1977/78 in New York City
Released: April 19th, 1978
| Players: | Patti Smith — vocals Lenny Kaye — guitar Ivan Kral — guitar Richard Sohl — keyboards Jay Dee Daugherty — drums |
| Album: | Easter (Arista, 1978) |
“Because The Night” was Patti Smith's biggest hit, reaching Number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Number Five on the U.K. chart.
The song was also Bruce Springsteen's first to enter the top 20.
Springsteen–a New Jersey native, while Smith was raised there–had written the song for his 1978 release Darkness On The Edge Of Town. When he decided not to use it, producer Jimmy Iovine smuggled the demo over to Smith's sessions at the same studio. Springsteen agreed to let Smith write her own set of lyrics, while he performs his own version during his concerts.
Though she often doesn't play it anymore, Smith says she still thinks warmly of “Because The Night”: “I'm actually grateful to that song. That song was my most, my only…it was my most popular song, of course. It was a collaboration with Bruce Springsteen, and it's in hard times…it's, because so many people have recorded it and it's been used in so many ways, it's helped me make a living. So I'm grateful to the song.”
The Easter album, Smith's third, hit Number 20 on the Billboard 200 (Smith's best showing to that date) and Number 16 in the U.K.
Some of the guests on the Easter album included Todd Rundgren, who would produce Smith's next album, Wave, and Blue Oyster Cult's Allan Lanier, who was Smith's boyfriend at the time.
It was during the tour for Easter that Smith met her future husband, former MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic“ Smith, during a stop in Detroit. The two married on March 1, 1980, and Smith moved to Detroit, where she gave birth to two children, Jackson and Jesse, and didn't release another album for eight years.
