Released 15 June 1974 Recorded 1974 Length 3:30 | Format 7" Genre Power pop, pop rock | |
B-side "Can You Get It When You Want It" | ||
"The Night Chicago Died" is a song by the British group Paper Lace, written by Peter Callander and Mitch Murray. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for one week in 1974, reached number 3 in the UK charts, and number 2 in Canada. It is about a fictional shoot-out between the Chicago Police and members of the Al Capone Syndicate. The narrator retells his mother's anguish while awaiting news of the fate of her husband, a Chicago policeman.
Contents
History
"The Night Chicago Died" was Paper Lace's follow-up single to "Billy Don't Be a Hero", a #1 hit in the U.K. but virtually unheard in the U.S. where Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods' cover reached #1. Callander and Murray wrote both songs.
The U.S. single received a Platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, signifying sales of at least one million copies. Though the song's story is set in the United States, Paper Lace were unable to perform the song live in the U.S. at the height of its popularity because of contractual issues.
Accuracy
"The Night Chicago Died" is about a shoot-out between the Chicago Police and gangsters tied to Al Capone. It was inspired by the real-life Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, although that involved Capone's men killing seven of Bugs Moran's gang members and had nothing to do with the police.
The song's events supposedly take place "on the East Side of Chicago". Chicago has three commonly referred-to regions: the North Side, the West Side and the South Side. There is no East Side, as Lake Michigan is immediately east of Downtown Chicago. While there is an area of Chicago known as "East Side", it is a neighborhood on the Far South Side on the Illinois/Indiana state line. East Side is also several miles away from where Capone lived on Prairie Avenue in Chicago. Furthermore, in the 1920s, East Side was known for being a quiet, residential, and predominantly Eastern European neighborhood—a sharp contrast from the site of the bloodbath described in the song.
The songwriters said in interviews—most notably on Beat Club shortly after the song's smash success—that they had never been to Chicago before that time, and that their knowledge of the city and that period of its history had been based on gangster films.
As reported by History.com:
"...in England there were at least a few young men that didn’t have all the facts straight, and in the 1970s their pop group from Nottingham turned their romantic misunderstanding of American history into a historically dubious yet gloriously catchy hit record. Though it was never intended for the American market, Paper Lace’s “The Night Chicago Died” crossed the Atlantic and became a #1 hit on the U.S. pop charts..."
Paper Lace did send the song to Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was not impressed with the song and greatly disliked it.