"Still of the Night" is a song by English rock band Whitesnake from their seventh studio album, 1987. It was released on 9 March 1987, by EMI Records and Geffen Records as the album's debut single. The single peaked at number sixteen on the UK Singles Chart, number seventy-nine on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number eighteen on the Mainstream Rock chart. The song, described as the group's epitome of the hair metal era, is known for its heavy riffs, dynamic structure, and vocals heavily inspired by Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant. Still of the Night has since become one of the band's signature songs.
The song was written by lead singer David Coverdale and guitarist John Sykes, and proved to be one of the band's most popular songs. Both the current Whitesnake lineup and John Sykes play the song as their live encore.
In 2009, in an interview with Metal Hammer, Coverdale commented on the origins of the song:[9]
"When my mother died I was going through the stuff at her house and found some early demo cassettes. One of them was a song that Ritchie Blackmore and I had been working on which was the basic premise of what would become "Still of the Night". It was totally unrecognizable, so Ritchie doesn't have anything to worry about... neither do I! Ha ha ha! I took it as far as I could then I gave it to Sykes when we were in the south of France, and he put the big guitar hero stuff on there. John hated blues so I had to work within those parameters. I manipulated it to be electric blues, but how he performed it was fabulous for his time and relatively unique because of the songs. There were a lot of people doing that widdly stuff but they didn't have the quality of those songs."
The director of the music video was Marty Callner. Initially the female role of the "Whitesnake woman" was planned for the pre-fame Claudia Schiffer, but the night before the shoot the plan fell apart. As such Callner called Coverdale to discuss changes on the story boards, but seeing the attractiveness of Coverdale's future wife Tawny Kitaen she was chosen to play the role.[10][11] Part of the video's set design was Coverdale's idea inspired by Elvis Presley's movie Jailhouse Rock, but "it's like much more idealized prison cells, but this was done with a big full moon. And the band was fantastic – they sold the song brilliantly".[12] The band in the music video is not the same as on the audio track. Of the original band that recorded the song, only vocalist David Coverdale appears. Studio bassist Neil Murray was replaced with Rudy Sarzo in the video, drummer Aynsley Dunbar was replaced by Tommy Aldridge, and guitarist John Sykes was replaced by Adrian Vandenberg and Vivian Campbell.
Comparison to Led Zeppelin
The song sparked comparison with Led Zeppelin. Some have claimed Coverdale copied Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" and "Whole Lotta Love".[13][14] David Coverdale has denied this, stating that the song structure and the main riff were inspired by "Jailhouse Rock" and Jeff Beck's "Rice Pudding", respectively.[15] In 1987, responding to the claims Coverdale jokingly stated "I guess it's quite a compliment to be placed in a class like that."[16]
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