Because The Night Video (MV)

"Because the Night" is a rock song from 1977 written by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith that appears on the Patti Smith Group album Easter, which was released in 1978. On March 2, 1978, the song was released as a single, and was commercially successful, reaching No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and No. 5 in the United Kingdom, which helped propel Easter to mainstream success.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band recorded "Because the Night" at Atlantic Studios in New York City on June 1, 1977, the first day of recording sessions for Darkness on the Edge of Town, though the lyrics only consisted of the song title and some mumbling. Springsteen struggled with the song for almost four months until his engineer, Jimmy Iovine, got involved. At the time, Iovine was also producing the album Easter for Patti Smith at the Record Plant in New York City, where Darkness was being recorded.

Iovine says, "Now, Bruce was very understanding and very flexible, because he realized that this was my first real break as a producer. Anyway, one night whilst we were lounging around the Hotel Navarro in New York I told Bruce I desperately wanted a hit with Patti, that she deserved one. He agreed. As he had no immediate plans to put 'Because the Night' on an album, I said why not give it to Patti. Bruce replied, 'If she can do it, she can have it.'" Smith later recorded the song two months after Springsteen's original version was recorded.

Springsteen later admitted he was not satisfied with the song, and he already knew he was not going to finish it since it was "a[nother] love song". Iovine brought Smith the last recording by Springsteen, from September 27, 1977. Smith added her own lyrics, recorded it, and scored her biggest hit single.

The song has been covered by several artists. In 1993, a live acoustic version was recorded by 10,000 Maniacs, featuring Natalie Merchant, for MTV Unplugged. This version reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the highest charting version of the song in the U.S. The song also became 10,000 Maniacs highest charting single in the U.S. and Canada.

In 1987, the song was ranked No. 116 on NME magazine's list of "The Top 150 Singles of All Time". It remains the best-known song of Smith's catalog. In 2021, Rolling Stone ranked it No. 358 on "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The Independent listed the song as one of the ten best new wave singles of 1978.