Love Is In The Air: Tonight's The Night

February 14, 2020


Month-long celebration of Love featuring Love Songs from the 70’s.

You are more than welcome to join in the fun, all you need to do is include a link to your post in the comments so that everyone can visit. The more the merrier :)  Your songs do not need to be from the 70’s, but they do need to be Love Songs.

Alright! Let’s get this party started! Fill up those waterbeds, break out the black lights and disco balls and let’s have some fun!

The song for today -

Tonight’s The Night by Rod Stewart


Wikipedia tells us about this song:

"Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" is a song written by Rod Stewart, and recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Alabama for his 1976 album A Night on the Town. The song proved to be a massive commercial success and became his second US chart topper on the Billboard Hot 100. It made its debut at number 81 on October 2, 1976 and rose quickly, climbing from number eight to the top of the chart on November 13, 1976, and remained on top for eight consecutive weeks until January 8, 1977. It was the longest stay of any song during 1976, as well as the longest stay at number one for Rod Stewart in his entire recording career. The song also peaked at No. 5 in the UK, No. 3 in Australia and charted well in other parts of the world. It was the number 1 song on Billboard's 1977 year-end chart. It became the best-selling single of 1977 in the United States. As of 2018, it is the nineteenth most popular song in the history of the chart

According to Dan Peek of America, Stewart's inspiration for "Tonight's the Night" was America's Top 30 hit "Today's the Day": Peek recalls that one evening when he and his guest Rod Stewart were playing together in Peek's home recording studio: "I played 'Today's the Day', the song I had been working on. Rod said that he liked it and that it gave him an idea for a song. Of course after his recording of 'Tonight's the Night' came out I laughed when I remembered what he'd said. I'm sure I probably smacked my forehead and said: 'Why didn't I think of that?'"

The song features a French spoken part from Britt Ekland who was Stewart's girlfriend at the time. While primarily recorded at Muscle Shoals, the final vocal was recorded at Caribou Ranch studios, where Stewart, Ekland and producer Tom Dowd spent several days. The high-altitude result was a vocal an octave higher than "sea-based" versions. Some radio stations play edits of the song, shortening the coda, as well as the whispers, because they were deemed to be too suggestive for airplay, where the songs could be banned from being played on the air.

The saxophone solo is by Jerry Jumonville







Won’t you join me in this fun month-long theme? Again, all you need to do is post your link in the comments.