"Tonight (Could Be the Night)" is a 1961 rock and roll song by the quintet called The Velvets. Virgil Johnson, a former deejay at Radio KDAV in Lubbock, Texas, was the lead tenor singer, with backup from Mark Prince (bass), Clarence Rigsby (tenor), Robert Thursby (first tenor), and William Solomon (baritone). The four were originally Johnson's eighth-grade pupils in an English class which he instructed in Odessa, also in West Texas, in the 1959-1960 school year. Clarence Rigsby perished in an automobile crash in 1978.
The song refers to a young woman waiting to fall in love or perhaps for her intended to propose marriage and present her with a ring of commitment. The Velvets can be heard chanting "doo-wop" as a refrain in a song, a musical phenomenon which first surfaced in 1955 in the song "When You Dance" by The Turbans.
Johnson wrote the lyrics to "Tonight." The song reached No. 26 on the Billboard Top 100 chart. The Velvets continued producing songs until 1966. In 1977 the New York rhythm and blues vocal group The Earls released a disco version of the song. Johnson sometimes still appears in nostalgia concerts.