For My Sunday Song #210, we come to the last song in the 10 song set of Whitesnake songs with “Still Of the Night”. The song was the first single off their groundbreaking, career breaking album known as ‘Whitesnake’ or ‘1987’ to some. This took the band to new heights and MTV played the hell out of it. The song was written by David Coverdale and John Sykes.
Lyrically, it comes as no surprise this song has a lot to do with Sex. The “cock rock” Kings are at it again. The song has an almost vampire element and stalker element. He is obsessed with this woman and wants to be with her all night. The daylight seems to hurt him as to keep his head down and hide his face from the sun. I know it isn’t about vampires, but I like the analogy so give me that.
Musically, this was a new Snake, a hungrier Snake, a more badass Snake. It has some blues elements of the old Whitesnake, but John Sykes took it, distorted it and turned it on its ass. David’s swagger on belting out the opening verse is full of confidence and aggression and exactly what every teenage boy wanted to hear (and girl wanted to see). There is a musical interlude in the middle that gives an awesome guitar solo a whole different style with an almost cello/violin/string instrument orchestration to the whole thing. Pretty freaking cool.
A couple fan facts, the woman in the video is Tawny Kitaen and she is the one that danced all over the Jaguars in the other Whitesnake videos that fascinated every little boy in the world at the time. And lastly, this song was based off an old demo David and Ritchie Blackmore had worked on back in the Purple days. He found it in a box at his mom’s house after she passed away. Mom’s keep everything!
Give the song a listen and let me know what you think. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have and I hope you enjoyed this 10 song set of Whitesnake songs. Now the hard part, figuring out what 10 songs to cover for the next band. Thanks for stopping by and have a Happy Sunday!
“Still Of The Night”
I hear the wolf howl, honey
Sniffing around your door
In the Still of the Night
I feel my heart beating heavy
Telling me I gotta have more
In the shadow of night
I see the full moon rise
Telling me what’s in store,
My heart start aching
My body start a shaking
And I can’t take no more, no, no
Now I just wanna get close to you
An’ taste your love so sweet
And I just wanna make love to you
Feel your body heat…
In the Still of the Night…
In the Still of the Night…
Over here baby…
In the heat of the day
I hang my head down low
And hide my face from the sun
Through the light of the day
Until the evening time
I’m waiting for the night to come
In the Still of the Night,
In the cool moonlight,
I feel my heart is aching
In the Still of the Night…
Tell me here baby
In the Still of the Night
I hear the wolf howl, honey
Sniffing around your door…
In the Still of the Night
I feel my heart beating heavy
Telling me I gotta have more…
Now I just wanna get close to you
An’ taste your love so sweet
And I just wanna make love to you
Feel your body heat.
In the Still of the Night…
Still of the Night,
Still of the Night,
Still of the Night…
2 Loud 2 Old Music 
I could never imagine this song being associated with Ritchie Blackmore. It’s just stylistically and musically too dissimilar to the stuff he was doing in Purple. Probably why it didn’t get far past demo stage. Neat little trivia piece though.
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It would’ve been a totally different song if Blackmore got a hold of it so I’m glad he didn’t.
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Is everyone aware of Blackmore’s Night?
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Aware, yes. Listened to them, No.
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That Jailhouse Rock inspired Intro got me immediately. Like how good is it. Hit a chord and then bang with the vocal melody.
That violin solo is impressive. I remember seeing an MTV Awards show and the band is playing to a tape, so Vandenberg is miming that he’s playing the lead with a violin bow.
And how good are those massive Zeppelin riffs in the middle and at the end that make it great. Hearing those evolution demos really makes this song that little bit more special.
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That performance was hilarious. We were watching it at my buddy’s house at the time as he had a satellite dish to bring in U.S Channels as Canada never carried MTV. We howled at Adrian doing the bow thing. Like really?? lol
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Ha!
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I even tried it to see how it would sound and in the words of Detective Ford Fairlane, I’ve heard cats f… with more harmony
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My favorite disk on all his box sets is that Evolution disk. So fun to hear the songs grow.
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I love that song even after 32 years, as almost everything that David & Co did.
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For me, the song only gets better with age!!
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EPIC comes to mind. This song fused that sound of the 80s combined with the stomp of 70s classic rock. One of the all time greats. Just love the end when they ramp up the tempo.
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It might be my favorite Snake song which is why I had it end the 10 song run. I had to go out with a bang.
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You went out with an explosion not a bang dude!
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Ha!
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Now that I read the lyrics, I can see that Vampire theme, John – and neat story about finding the old demo in a box. Makes me feel a bit better about not doing a good job de-cluttering around here, perhaps we have some gems hiding here too!
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I am sure you do. Heck, those Healthcare Worker celebration songs are definitely solid gold by themselves.
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much appreciated, John!
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Such a cheesy video as you would expect from its era, but man what a tune, especially when the mid8 kicks in and they bring it down, then they launch back into the riff. It owes a lot to Zep sure, but still sounds bombastic and sassy after all these years. Remember dancing to it at the local rock club on weekends, and yeah it was all over MTV. Cool blast from the past.
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Glad it brought back memories. And yes, oh so cheesy videos…but that is their charm!!
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Great song, great pick! Yeah it took Sykes to do this, you are right.
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This is THE definitive metal song from the 80’s, and there was a lot to choose from back then (my favorite era) between bands and guitarists. While Sykes is largely responsible for the work, the overall orchestration of the song, from guitar/drums/vocals/bass/”bow” is pretty much heads and shoulders above anything else from that era. Not sure what Coverdale “wrote” besides the lyrics. Sykes sound and main riff hits like a steamroller, but the drums/bass accompany perfectly…..not only that, but there are also so many amazing riffs in this one song. Rick Beato on YouTube will have videos about “perfect” songs, and IMO, this song is one of them. If anyone wants to hear the isolated guitar track (and FINALLY get to hear the solo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVETHQ7XeeM
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I loved Sykes with Whitesnake, hated to see that end…but you still can’t beat early Whitesnake…might be the best part of them.
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