It’s time to get back to my favorite decade. For the month of March, I’ll be looking back at some of my favorite jams from the 80s. These songs often came to me via MTV or the radio. NYC-area stations WDRE, WPLJ, WNEW, K-ROCK and Z100 introduced me to everything from irresistible pop confections to under-the-radar post-punk anthems. I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for the 80s. It was the decade when I discovered music can be a truly powerful thing. #31DaysOf80sSongs
In high. school, a friend lent me his Whitesnake cassette. Glam metal generally isn’t my cup of tea, but let’s just say, when Poison, Def Leppard or Whitesnake was playing on the radio, I didn’t necessarily switch the dial. Still, that Whitesnake album exceeded my expectations. So much so that I bought my own cassette and a t-shirt to match. Everyone from that era probably remembers “Here I Go Again” and the power ballad “Is This Love?”. But the song to know is an epic banger called “Still of the Night”.
If you’re going to listen to one Whitesnake song in your lifetime, make sure it’s this one. The tendency with glam metal songs is to assume a certain simplicity of the output, that the songs are all running at one single speed: hard and fast. But “Still of the Night” has three distinct movements. The hard & fast formula still applies. But there’s a great epic mid-tempo section outro starting at the 3:55 mark. And the magnus opus within a magnus opus starts at the 2:10 mark where the song downshifts into a mesmerizing performance led by John Syke’s electric guitar played with a violin bow. Coverdale wrote an exceptional song, and proved he’s far more than just a stereotypical glam metal frontman. Hands down, “Still of the Night” breaks stereotypes and is one of the greatest hard rockers of the 80’s.
“In the shadow of night I see the full moon rise telling me what's in store.”