Studio Daze: "Here Comes The Night"

 "Here Comes The Night" was written by famed producer Bert Berns. Originally Berns gave the song to the Scottish songstress Lulu in 1964 and went on to become a modest hit clocking in at number fifty on the U.K. charts. In October 1964, the band Them fronted by Irish music extraordinaire Van Morrison, congregated at Decca Studios and were presented the track by Berns who was producing the sessions.

Billy Harrison, Them's lead guitarist later recounted his impression of the song, "I remember sitting in Decca when Bert said he had this song, and he came out with "Here Comes the Night". He had a riff and that's all he had, and we sat and we worked on it, and we came up with what you hear. We worked at it sitting in the studio—but no engineers or anything." In order to beef up the sound of the song, Berns contracted Jimmy Page to play rhythm on the track, and Andy White (Who had previously played drums on The Beatles' first single "Love Me Do") was tasked with accompanying on backing vocals.

Andy White

Them actually recorded their take on "Here Comes The Night" prior to Lulu, but a decision by Decca, who felt that Lulu had more commercial appeal, let the pop stars take on the song become the first to be released. Phil Coulter, who played keyboard on Them's version recalled the band's ire with the decision, "They bitched to me a lot but they wouldn't dare to have said anything to [Record Executive, Phil] Solomon." Upon seeing Lulu's version tank at number fifty, it was said the band took a certain satisfaction with the result.

Ultimately, "Here Comes The Night" was released by Decca as the band's third single and went on to become a smash hit, peaking at number two on the charts. The song was responsible for breaking the group, and establishing Them as one of the top hit pop groups in the U.K. Front man Van Morrison was a bit hesitant and a little put off by the group's new found success, especially once they were asked to appear on the TV program, Top of the Pops.  "Them were never meant to be on Top of the Pops, I mean miming? Lip syncing? We used to laugh at the programme, think it was a joke. Then we were on it ourselves. It was ridiculous. We were totally anti that type of thing. We were really into the blues...and we had to get into suits and have make-up put on and all that."

"Here Comes The Night" has gone down as one of the all time great pop songs to come out of the British Invasion. Though the group did not last very long, Them established Van Morrison as a tour de force in the music industry, and propelled him to stardom and fame. Van Morrison would later re-record "Here Comes The Night" for his solo album titled, It's Too Late To Stop Now.

Van Morrison