Still of the Night (song)

"Still of the Night" is a song by the English band Whitesnake. It was released as the first single from their self titled 1987 album. It reached #16 in the U.K.,[1] #18 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock Tracks and #79 on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released on 9 March 1987. In 2009, the track was named the 27th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.[2]

This article is about the song by Whitesnake. For other uses, see Still of the Night.

"Still of the Night"
Single by Whitesnake
from the album Whitesnake
B-side"Here I Go Again" and "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again"
Released21 March 1987 (UK)
9 March 1987 (US)
Recorded1986
GenreHeavy metal, glam metal
Length6:41 (album version)
3:58 (single version)
LabelGeffen, EMI
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
Whitesnake singles chronology
"Slow an' Easy"
(1984)		 "Still of the Night"
(1987)		 "Crying in the Rain '87"
(1987)
Music video
"Still of the Night" on YouTube

Background

The song was written by lead singer David Coverdale and guitarist John Sykes, and proved to be one of the band's most popular songs. It combines the blues origins of the band with the more distorted, harder sound driving the song, making for a powerful hard rock song. Both the current Whitesnake lineup and John Sykes play the song as their live encore.

In 2009, in an interview with Metal Hammer, Coverdale commented on the origins of the song:[3]

"When my mother died I was going through the stuff at her house and found some early demo cassettes. One of them was a song that Ritchie Blackmore and I had been working on which was the basic premise of what would become "Still of the Night". It was totally unrecognizable, so Ritchie doesn't have anything to worry about... neither do I! Ha ha ha! I took it as far as I could then I gave it to Sykesy when we were in the south of France, and he put the big guitar hero stuff on there. John hated blues so I had to work within those parameters. I manipulated to be electric blues, but how he performed it was fabulous for his time and relatively unique because of the songs. There were a lot of people doing that widdly stuff but they didn't have the quality of those songs."

Music video

The director of the music video was Marty Callner. Initially the female role of the "Whitesnake woman" was planned for the pre-fame Claudia Schiffer, but the night before the shoot the plan fell apart. As such Callner called Coverdale to discuss changes on the story boards, but seeing attractiveness of Coverdale's future wife Tawny Kitaen she was chosen to be play the role.[4][5] Part of the video's set design was Coverdale's idea inspired by Elvis Presley's movie Jailhouse Rock, but "it's like much more idealized prison cells, but this was done with a big full moon. And the band was fantastic – they sold the song brilliantly".[6]

Track listing
  1. "Still of the Night" – 6:38
  2. "Here I Go Again" – 4:33
  3. "You're Gonna Break My Heart Again" – 4:11

Personnel

References
  1. "Whitesnake The Official Charts Company".
  2. "spreadit.org music". Archived from the original on 4 January 2009. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  3. Lawson, Dom (29 July 2009). "Whitesnake: The Story Behind 1987". Metal Hammer. Retrieved 6 December 2020 – via Louder Sound.
  4. Hotten, Jon (June 2001). "Year of the snake". Classic Rock #28. p. 28.
  5. "Actress Tawny Kitaen Looks Back On Whitesnake's 'Here I Go Again' Video". Blabbermouth.net. 4 June 2020. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  6. Kaufman, Spencer (13 March 2019). "David Coverdale Tells the Story Behind Whitesnake's Iconic "Here I Go Again" Video". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved 5 December 2020 – via Yahoo!.
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