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Here Comes the Night (The Beach Boys song)
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Wikipedia article
"'Here Comes the Night'" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band The Beach Boys. It was originally released on their 1967 album, 'Wild Honey'. In 1979, the song was re-recorded and released on their 1979 album, 'L.A. (Light Album)', as a disco song lasting nearly eleven minutes.
Composition and reception
Author Andrew Hickey noted: "This is a rather by-the-numbers song which however manages the interesting trick of having the chorus apparently lose its tonal centre altogether normally one would have a harmonically simple chorus while the verses are complex, but this has simple verses in C but a chorus whose chords are Cmin, Ab7 and F, which are chords that just should not go together."*
Producer Tony Visconti spoke positively of the song, commenting, "I can play that 10 times today and I wouldn't get bored with it."
1979 disco version
The 1979 disco version of the song, produced by Bruce Johnston and Curt Becher, is over eight minutes longer than the original song, with Becher contributing to the arrangement. There are five edits of this disco version. The first edit appears on the 'L.A. (Light Album)', while the second edit was released on a 12" single release (Caribou/Brother/CBS 2Z8-9028). The third edit was the B-side of the 12" single, which is a slightly shorter instrumental (backing track) version of the song. The fourth and fifth version of the song is found on the 7" single release (Caribou/Brother/CBS ZS8 9026)(DJ version). Despite the dominance of disco music at the time of song's release, this version of "Here Comes the Night" peaked at #48 on the Disco Top 80 chart.
Al Jardine later expressed his distaste for the disco remake of the song, remarking, "I hated that track. It was one of the worst experiences of my like recording anywhere, but Bruce has this idea to do the perfect disco record, which of course none of our fans wanted us to do. I like the original song, but this pandering to disco did not work. Curt Becher, who was really quite a producer and musician in his own right, it was really a labor of love for those guys. They wanted every note perfect, and it had to be right on the right beats per minute, mathematically created for disco. But that disco sound didn't suit the Beach Boys at all."
The band briefly introduced the disco version into their live set in 1979. Jardine commented, "We performed it once and we were booed. We actually received such criticism that we never played it again."
;Variations
*Time: 10 min 51 sec (album version)
*Time: 10 min 36 sec (12" single edit)
*Time: 9 min 4 sec (12" instrumental edit)
*Time: 4 min 28 sec (7" single edit) long version
*Time: 3 min 18 sec (7" single edit) short version
Reception
Reviewing the song in 1979, 'Smash Hits' said, "Hard, fast electro-burble and swirling strings pound along beneath snatches of harmonising voices and a lot of solo lead singing of an unremarkable song. It's OK but there are plenty of better disco tracks about."Chart performance
Personnel
1967 version
Sourced from Craig Slowinski.Slowinski liner notes, ESQ Issue 121.*Brian Wilson lead vocals, piano
*Carl Wilson guitar
*Dennis Wilson drums
*Ron Brown bass
1979 re-recording
Partial info sourced from Craig Slowiniski.
'The Beach Boys'
*Carl Wilson lead vocals
*Mike Love backing vocals
*Al Jardine vocals
*Bruce Johnston vocals
'Additional personnel'
*Joe Chemay electric bass
*Dan Wyman Moog synthesizer
*Joel Peskin alto saxophone solo
References
Category:1967 songs
Category:1979 singles
Category:The Beach Boys songs
Category:Songs written by Brian Wilson
Category:Songs written by Mike Love
Category:Song recordings produced by Bruce Johnston
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