The Bad Penny (beta)

While Bruce Springsteen and his band released the riveting song “Because the Night” in 1986, it actually originally appeared in 1978, on the studio album Easter — not by Springsteen, but by revered proto-punk poet Patti Smith (read my interview with the punk-poet legend here), who made it the best-known tune among Patti Smith Group tunes. The reason that occurred is because Springsteen allegedly couldn’t finish the tune, and engineer Jimmy Iovine (who later cofounded Interscope Record in 1990) facilitated the transfer of Bruce Springsteen’s unfinished song, “Because the Night.”

Read my full story on AllMusic.

This entry was posted on 10/11/2026 at 8:25 am and is filed under Essays with tags Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.