"Night Life" song w/ its bleak tone scored for Nelson

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"Night Life" seemed a perfect song to hear on the radio toward the end of the 1970s, the cynical decade. In my mind the song will always have Danny Davis' brass players in the background. 

Consider how the song starts: "When the evening sun goes down, you will find me hanging 'round. The night life ain't no good life. But it's my life." 

This is considered songwriting gold, of course. I can only praise anyone who writes a song that gets such great traction. Consider that the lyrics cannot be considered uplifting. Scratching one's head, we might reason that the "positive message" is that this fellow accepts his life as it is. At the same time, he admits its shortcomings. 

So, can't a person step away from a life that "ain't no good life?" Couldn't anyone choose to set the bar higher? 

The song indeed reflects the zeitgeist of the 1970s. It was a rather stagnant decade where none of the miracle of digital had sprouted yet. We still had what columnist David Brooks of the New York Times called "the redundancies of the World War II type of organization." We had a shared popular culture far more than today. It is hard to conclude whether that was good or bad. 

The "niche" nature of entertainment is almost smothering us today. Entertainment systems cater to every minute whim or need, ad nauseam, and we must wonder at a certain point if it is all making us happy. A sea change in the 1950s was the boomer generation youth getting TV. We were marketed to, us kids. We saw through the marketing machinations better than the puppet masters of marketing realized. Thus we got Mad Magazine. 

Our whole culture found the so-called night life appealing. The arrival of darkness in the evening did not signal a retreat from vigorous activities. The late Larry King talked about "appointment TV." And that is what "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" was. I was as transfixed as anyone. We'd grumble about how much time off Johnny got. We'd get these "guest hosts" that could not replicate what Johnny offered. Johnny mastered the craft of entertainment after 10:30 p.m. CDT for a mass audience. Tell topical jokes. Come up with material that was just plain funny or irreverent. Have ongoing gags, so the show could be kind of a familiar home base for people. Connect to your audience in a way that was of course totally illusory. 

"Leave 'em laughing." Ann-Margret taught us about that phrase in the 1962 movie "State Fair." Her character explained it's an illusion by performers to connect with the audience in an almost personal way. Of course it is not personal at all. It's entertainment. 

  

Talent can have its baggage

Willie Nelson had the innate songwriting gift. And like so many with this inclination, his personality is idiosyncratic, off the rails in certain ways. My own church pastor once explained how people with creative talent can have psychological tics or even deep-seated problems. Consider Johnny Paycheck who actually ended up in prison: could you connect a guy like this to such a beautiful and sensitive song like "Old Violin?" 

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I totally envy Willie Nelson and his success. Still, I review the lyrics of his song "Night Life" and can't help but think: "What's the big deal?" 

"OK Brian you write a song like that yourself, then." Such might be the retort. And I do try. I have respect for the songwriting craft that goes above how I feel about journalism. Journalism is a craft where I have professional creds. I mean, it was a full-time job for 27 years. You might extend the time period, realistically, because of the countless weekends and holidays when I worked. 

People can be conflicted judging journalism. Is it really supposed to be 100 percent "objective?" And can all even agree on what "objective" is? We all view current events or controversies through a lens developed through our own background. And if journalism defies clear understanding, songwriting is way further out there in terms of being inscrutable. A person capable of writing a textbook on songwriting might never be able to write a Top 40 hit. 

Nelson knew the key to reaching a mass audience with material that "clicked," even though the words seem not to reflect obvious genius. They do, but it's hard simply conceptualizing it. Or, to build a science around it? Forget it! 

 

Song has history of its own

I noted that "Night Life" seemed rather an ode to the defeatist 1970s, the "Studio 54" decade. Nelson actually wrote the song years earlier. It was first released as a (vinyl) record in 1960. The 'B' side was "Rainy Day Blues." 

The vicissitudes of the music industry are evident in spades when reviewing the song history. Any song has to start somewhere. The germination need not be in the kind of setting we expect: seated at one's piano keyboard at home, manuscript paper in front of you. It can happen this way but in myriad other ways as well. The key is to just have some paper available and a writing tool, lest you forget some song idea that has the potential to be heard all around the world! Isn't it amazing, the sheer power of popular songs? A song idea might be scribbled on the back on a receipt, you name it. Oh, there has to be a light source. 

Nelson wrote "Night Life" during one of his trips from his home in Pasadena TX to his work, singing at the Esquire Ballroom in Houston. He wrote the concluding lines on the way home! He was financially pressed. He sold the song for $150 to music colleague Paul Buskirk. The song initially got a thumbs-down at the studio level. See what I mean by "vicissitudes?" And why? The song was judged "not really country." 

Imagine writing a song like this and experiencing the letdown which pervades song composition, that letdown being "rejection." I talked to the respected head of a songwriting association once, who noted that even he had the door slammed on him sometimes. The point being, you had better love the craft of songwriting if you choose to plunge into it. You'll write many songs that are dead-enders before you just might - still no guarantee - write a song that hits paydirt. 

Just keep plugging away as Nelson has always done. It's built in to his soul. Does a little "weed" help? I won't explore that here. 

Nelson sold the song but he still pushed it for recording purposes. Legal wrinkles forced him to alter the spelling to "Nite Life" and to even alter his own name. Studio politics was involved, apparently. It wasn't until 1963 that the wrinkles evidently got pushed aside and we got "Night Life by Willie Nelson." 

The original "Nite Life," presented with Buskirk's name and "Hugh Nelson," went essentially nowhere.

Patience brings all things?

 

Bursting through

Ray Price in 1960 purchased the song. Imagine such simple lines of lyrics getting bandied about for a pricetag. Interesting way to make a living. The song became the title track for Price's 1963 album "Night Life." Someone knew something: the song became a hit. Who says that resigned or defeatist thoughts - a gravitating to the seedy "Night Life" - can't be endearing or far-reaching? 

Or, maybe let's interpret the song like this: the singer admits the shortcomings around him but has the wisdom to describe it accurately. For whatever reason he is committed to these surroundings, perhaps only short-term.

Nothing succeeds like success. Doris Day of all people recorded the song in 1963 also. She of the cheery saccharine disposition. Nelson's original 1960 recording, this time with "Night" spelled correctly, came out in '63 too. My goodness, the trumpeter Al Hirt recorded the song! He sang some. 

Nelson re-recorded the song in 1965. A veritable list of music stars shared their versions, all evidently eager to share the concept of retreating into a night life sans virtue. Ah, but the singer knows better! And let me add: all trumpet players fancy themselves good singers.

 

Partnership I loved ("discogs" image)

Bring on the brass

So the song found its niche in the 1970s where I remember best the recording of Nelson with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass. Ah, the pleasing brassy strains behind Nelson's unmistakable vocal styling. I'm biased as a trumpet player. 

The Nelson/Davis collaboration was in 1979, a year after I was out of college. This version got to No. 20 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. 

The parade continued with Aretha Franklin. All of this was the fruit of a seed that got planted in Nelson's mind during a routine nighttime commute in his early professional days. "Paying his dues." 

Such can be the origin of blockbuster hits, the words of which are memorized all over. 

But I ask: where is the genius? I mean, to simply write "when the evening sun goes down, you will find me hanging 'round." Doing what? Seems almost like throwaway thoughts. But maybe such thoughts ring true for a great many, as we ponder the pedestrian nature of our existence, our mundane day-to-day doings.

The essence of songwriting itself? Could very well be. Congratulations to Willie Nelson on his incredible track record, even while fashioning a personal image that contradicts tuxedos. But he's real. And that's what people want from their popular songs: they want them to be real, to penetrate through the pretensions or stodgy parameters in life. Night life may be no good life, but it's endearing country music. 

I remember when the great opera singer Luciano Pavarotti announced Willie Nelson for an award once, and said "Willie Wilson." The amused co-host said "the audience knows who he is!" Nelson was the writer of "Night Life," a song extolling no special virtues at all, rather the opposite, under cloak of depressing nighttime. It reminds of the famous Edward Hopper painting "Nighthawks."

Do you think Nelson ever worries about the "money" aspect of his craft? Do you think Paycheck ever did? Rhetorical question.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com