Only After Dark

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"Only After Dark"
Song by Mick Ronson
from the album Slaughter on 10th Avenue
ReleasedFebruary 1974
RecordedJuly 1973
Studio Château d'Hérouville, Hérouville, France; Trident, London
Genre Glam rock
Length3:32
Label RCA
Producer(s) Mick Ronson
"Only After Dark"
Oadcover.jpg
Single by The Human League
from the album Travelogue
B-side "Toyota City"
Released9 May 1980 [1]
RecordedMonumental Studios, Sheffield, England
Genre Synth-pop, new wave, minimal wave
Length3:51
Label Virgin Records
Songwriter(s) Ronson/Richardson
Producer(s) Colin Thurston
The Human League singles chronology
"Empire State Human"
(1980)
"Only After Dark"
(1980)
"Boys and Girls"
(1981)

"Only After Dark" is a song by the English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer Mick Ronson. Co-written with Scott Richardson, it was on Ronson's 1974 debut solo album Slaughter on 10th Avenue , released shortly after leaving David Bowie's backing band The Spiders from Mars. It was the B-side to Ronson's second solo single "Love Me Tender"; a song made famous by Elvis Presley.

Contents

Cover versions

In 1980, British synthpop group the Human League recorded a version for the band's second album, Travelogue . The Human League's version was produced by Colin Thurston. [2]

The song was pressed as a single by Virgin Records following the release of the Travelogue album, but it was then decided to re-release the song "Empire State Human" (from the band's first album) instead and include "Only After Dark" as a free single to be given away with the first 15,000 copies of "Empire State Human". This was perceived by the band as a total lack of faith in their newer material, causing great resentment and anger, [3] and would be one of the issues that contributed to the split of this line-up of The Human League some months later. As a free single it was not included in the UK chart mechanism, though the re-release of "Empire State Human" to which it belonged peaked at No. 62. [4] [5]

Fellow Sheffield band, Def Leppard covered "Only After Dark" in 1992, as a B-side to their UK No. 2 hit single, "Let's Get Rocked". Their version was later included on the 1993 compilation Retro Active ; a collection of touched-up versions of B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from the band's recording sessions between 1984 and 1993.

Cultural reference

Only After Dark. a Birmingham clubnight specialising in music from the New Romantic era and David Bowie, has run since 2009 at various Birmingham venues. [6]

References

  1. "Music Week" (PDF). p. 28.
  2. "The Human League". The-black-hit-of-space.dk. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  3. "THE HUMAN LEAGUE Blind Youth - the complete guide to The Human League 1977-1980". Blindyouth.co.uk. 9 April 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2016. Philip Oakey: Which is why we had a very big argument with Virgin Records over Only After Dark, which they pressed without telling us.
  4. "THE HUMAN LEAGUE Blind Youth - the complete guide to The Human League 1977-1980". Blindyouth.co.uk. 9 April 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  5. "Human League Biog 1980 - 1992". Archived from the original on 9 August 2007. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
  6. Live, Birmingham (15 January 2010). "Music: Only After Dark debuts at Birmingham Sound Bar". Birminghammail.net. Retrieved 30 December 2021.