“Because The Night” by Patti Smith

"Because the Night" is where Patti Smith met the pop charts head-on, and she didn't get there alone: she wrote the song with Bruce Springsteen in 1977, and it landed on Easter, the Patti Smith Group's 1978 album. Two writers, one song, and it plays like both of them are leaning on the accelerator.

Out as a single on March 2, 1978, it climbed to No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 5 in the UK, and it hauled Easter into the mainstream right behind it. Smith attacks it like she has everything to prove, all urgency and ache, riding a chorus built to be hollered back from the cheap seats.

The critics never let it go. NME ranked it No. 116 among the 150 greatest singles ever in 1987, The Independent picked it as one of 1978's ten finest new wave singles, and Rolling Stone slotted it at No. 358 on its 500 greatest songs of all time in 2021. Through all of it, it has stayed the best-known song in her catalog.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.