Night Moves (song)

Background

"Night Moves" has roots in Seger's adolescence; he wrote the song in an attempt to capture the "freedom and looseness" he experienced during that period of his life. At a certain point, he began socializing with a rougher crowd, who thought he was cool because he played music. The song's contents are largely autobiographical; for example, the group of friends would often hold parties they called "grassers", which involved going to a farmer's field outside Ann Arbor to dance. Through these, he met a woman—credited as Rene Andretti in the Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings—whose boyfriend was in the military and was away. "It's about this dark haired Italian girl that I went out with when I was 19, she was one year older than me," he later recalled. Seger promptly pursued a romantic relationship with the girl, but eventually her partner returned and they married, leaving Seger with a broken heart. Seger later told journalist Timothy White that many of his early songs were written to impress the girl.

The song took Seger over six months to complete writing. He had recently purchased a house due to the success of his first live album, Live Bullet, and he and the band would write and practice in its large basement. The ending lyrics were written first. The use of descriptive imagery was inspired by Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” (1969), a song that Seger loved and which motivated him as he was developing his writing style. The catalyst for writing "Night Moves" came after Seger saw the 1973 film American Graffiti: "I came out of the theater thinking, ‘Hey, I've got a story to tell, too! Nobody has ever told about how it was to grow up in my neck of the woods.'" Seger was inspired by the film's depictions of early 1960s car culture, of which he was a part. A 1996 article in The Detroit News claims that Seger wrote portions of the song while at an A&W in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Recording and production

"Night Moves" was recorded at Nimbus Nine Studios in Toronto, Ontario. Seger and the Silver Bullet Band had gone there for three days to record a few tracks with The Guess Who's producer Jack Richardson at the request of Seger's manager, who wanted him to produce a more "commercial" song. The band quickly recorded two Seger originals and a cover of the Motown hit "My World Is Empty Without You", but before Seger left on the third day, he composed a fourth song to record. He had been "waiting on the right moment" to record "Night Moves", as he feared a saxophone, performed by Alto Reed, wouldn't complement it, and that lead guitarist Drew Abbott's playing would not be satisfactory. Richardson remembered Seger first playing the song at a piano in his office, though Seger did not feel it was good enough to record. Seger instead remembered that Richardson was not sold on the song at first. As the only members of the Silver Bullet Band still in Toronto were the bassist and drummer (plus Seger on acoustic guitar and piano), Richardson recruited local session musicians to play electric guitar and organ, while Sharon Lee Williams, Rhonda Silver and Laurel Ward sang the song's trademark backing vocals.

The song was completed in fewer than ten takes, with the session dispersing momentarily to record the bridge section that consisted solely of Seger and a guitar. Paul Cotton of Poco was brought in to record a guitar solo that was later edited out, though the last notes of it are faintly audible preceding the last verse. The team stayed at the studio until 2:30 in the morning to get the song right. After the tracks were mixed by Richardson and engineer Brian Christian, Richardson said that he received a call from Seger's manager/producer Punch Andrews expressing dissatisfaction with the tracks, and Andrews said that Capitol Records had been equally disappointed. A few months later, when Richardson was talking to a Capitol A&R executive, he asked about the Seger sessions and was told that "both tracks" were potential B-sides. It turned out that Seger and Andrews had never given "Night Moves" to Capitol, so Richardson did and, after hearing it, Capitol made it the title track of Seger's next album, as well as the first single.

Composition

"Night Moves" is a mid-tempo number that starts quietly with acoustic guitar. Bass guitar and drums are introduced as the song's setting is described: 1962, cornfields, '60 Chevy. While Seger actually owned a 1962 Chevy, he felt "'60s" flowed better in the song. Seger uses the word "points" in verse one to reference his pointed boots and his love interests' breasts. An intense summertime teenage affair is described, knowingly more sexual than romantic, with short instrumental lines breaking the evocative imagery, sometimes in mid-sentence. Piano, female backing vocals, electric guitar and organ are added as the song's emotional nostalgia builds momentum. Then suddenly it stops, as the narrative flashes forward to some period in the future, where he hums a song from 1962. Seger has claimed in interviews that he was referencing the song "Be My Baby" by the Ronettes, though that song was actually released one year later. To a quiet acoustic guitar, the narrator, awakened by a clap of thunder and unable to fall back asleep, ponders a different sense of the title phrase. Seger said this passage was inspired by late-night self-analysis and "the uncertainty night represents": "I was thinking about the whole aura of nighttime, the four o'clock in the morning moment when you assess yourself, check your weaknesses." Then the rest of the instruments fall back in, for an extended coda vamp of the chorus.

Richardson said that "the whole arrangement came together in the studio." The decision for an unusual bridge (consisting of three separate movements) was inspired by the Bruce Springsteen song "Jungleland". He credited that song, in addition to the Born to Run album, with helping him complete the song: "He had like a multiple bridge, he had various different things going on, and I thought to myself, 'That's how I'll finish 'Night Moves.'"

Chart performance

"Night Moves" was a commercial success in the United States. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart during the week of December 11, 1976 at number 85, gradually rising over the ensuing weeks to a peak of number four on March 12, 1977, a position it held for two weeks. In total, it spent 21 weeks on the chart. In Canada, the song debuted on RPM's Top Singles chart at number 93 in the issue dated December 18, 1976, eventually rising over the course of twelve weeks to a peak of number five on March 12, 1977.

The song also charted in Australasian territories: in Australia, it peaked at number 25 on the national charts, and in New Zealand, it reached a peak of number 39. The song did not chart in the United Kingdom until 1995, when it peaked at a position of 45 on April 30, 1995.

Reception

"Night Moves" received critical acclaim. Timothy White of Crawdaddy! felt "the genius of the song [...] is the way Seger changes the meaning of the phrase 'night moves,' from a reference to making out, to a comment on the passage of time." In his 1979 volume Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island, famed rock critic Greil Marcus selected the single "Night Moves" for inclusion on same, writing simply: "The mystic chords of memory." Paul Evans, in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, writes: "[It] is not only Seger's best song, but one of rock's most moving exercises in elegy."

Seger, for his part, has claimed that "Night Moves" is his favorite song he ever wrote, and that he continued to try and replicate it years afterward.

Accolades

"Night Moves" was named by Rolling Stone as Best Single of the Year for 1977. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named it one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll, Seger's only such selection.

Music video

Filmmaker Gary Weis produced an unofficial music video for "Night Moves" that aired on Saturday Night Live in January 1977.

In 1994, nearly 20 years after the original song was released, an official accompanying music video was released. Directed by Wayne Isham, it was set in a drive-in movie theater in the early 1960s; it interspersed footage of Seger performing in a present-day version of the drive-in (seemingly, now abandoned) with various vignettes featuring characters described in the song. Matt LeBlanc was in the starring role, prior to his debut in Friends; he later claimed that he was drunk through the whole video, having shared a bottle of tequila with Seger immediately before the shoot. Also featured in the video was Daphne Zuniga of Melrose Place. In the video, Zuniga's dark, edgy young woman becomes an object of visual fascination for LeBlanc's clean-cut young man. Johnny Galecki and Natasha Gregson Wagner also appear in the video as a young couple.

In popular culture

"Night Moves" has been referenced and included in numerous television, film, and video game soundtracks. Seger recorded a special version of "Night Moves" for the 1981 animated film American Pop. This version, with Seger's guitar overdubbed by a piano, has never been released on any album.

The song has been referenced or sung in several television series, including 30 Rock, Eastbound & Down, How I Met Your Mother, Home Wreckers, Family Guy, That '70s Show, Ray Donovan, Supernatural and The OC. TNN used an alternate version at the end of their coverage of the 1996 Winston All-Star Race. It replaced the line "tryin' to lose the awkward teenage blues" heard in the regular song with "tryin' to make some front page drive-in news". This version also removed all mentions of the line "in the back seat of my '60 Chevy." "Night Moves", along with "Hollywood Nights", appeared on the soundtrack for the 2013 video game, Grand Theft Auto V. Both songs are featured in the in-game radio station, Los Santos Rock Radio.