Favorite "Night" Songs #1 - "All Night Long"

Tweet

And, no, if you were thinking of Lionel Ritchie, you were way off (under consideration, but did not make the cut.) #1 in my Favorite "Night" Songs series is "All Night Long" by Peter Murphy, who is making his solo debut on my music countdowns. Who better than to close out a "night" series than The Godfather of Goth (so nicknamed because his former band, Bauhaus, invented the genre.) After Bauhaus broke up, Peter Murphy moved on to a solo career that has very little to do with goth (although he does perform Bauhaus songs in concert.) "All Night Long," from Murphy's 1988 album Love Hysteria, is not a goth song. It is, however, a beautiful piece of music (not as beautiful as his "Marlene Deitrich's Favorite Poem," but certainly more pleasing to the average listener's ear than, say, Bauhaus' "In the Flat Fields,") with some lovely Middle Eastern-style percussion and Murphy's soothing vocals. "All Night Long" was released as a single, but failed to chart anywhere but in the UK, where it barely made a dent at #100 on the Singles chart. I've said it before: Not all hits are great songs, and not all great songs are hits. This falls into the latter category. It didn't even hit Billboard's Modern Rock chart. It deserved better. Peter Murphy did hit big with his next album, Deep, and it's hit, "Cuts You Up." Call "All Night Long" the hit that should've been. (Info verified by Wikipedia)