Album of the Day — August 22
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band — Night Moves
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band — Night Moves
22.August.2020
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
Night Moves
1976
It’s hard to imagine this was Bob Seger’s ninth studio album. Harder still is the fact that it’s 44 years old.
Night Moves was the first of Seger’s album to name the Silver Bullet Band, even if he’d been working with the majority of them since 1973, and less than half of the record was recorded with them (only four of the nine songs).
After the unexpected success of the live album, Live Bullet, Seger set about recording a new studio album. To capture the sound he wanted, he returned to the same place he recorded his previous studio album, Beautiful Loser, Sheffield, Alabama.
Sheffield was home to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios — opened in 1969 when a group of musicians called the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (sometimes called The Swampers) decided to build their studio after falling out with Rick Hall, the owner of FAME Studios in nearby Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Artists who have recorded there include:
The Rolling Stones
Aretha Franklin
George Michael
Wilson Pickett
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Cat Stevens
Rod Stewart
Night Moves is evenly split down the middle with four tracks recorded with the Silver Bullet Band in Detroit:
“Rock and Roll Never Forgets”
“The Fire Down Below”
“Sunburst”
“Mary Lou”
and four recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section:
“Sunspot Baby”
“Mainstreet”
“Come to Poppa”
“Ship of Fools”
The outlier was the title track and first single, “Night Moves,” which was recorded in Toronto with a mix of artists. The song’s inspiration was also a mix of artists — Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland,” Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” the movie American Graffiti, and of course, a girl.
“Night Moves” would be the song that broke Bob Seger and became his first hit single since 1969’s “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man.”
The song portrays two people exploring sexuality in their youth. “Night Moves” is the story of people exploring their bodies — “Workin on mysteries without any clues” — it’s the story of sex — “The back seat of my ’60 Chevy” — probably unprotected sex — “Living by the sword” — horniness — “We’d steal away every chance we could.” There is a universality to “Night Moves” because, in one way or another, everyone can relate to sex.
But as the narrator points out, the thing this is not is a love song — “We weren’t in love oh no, far from it.”
This is the song from the perspective of a grown man fondly recalling his youth. Maybe he’s sitting on his deck, looking over his backyard, having a beer waiting for his wife to return home. It’s a bittersweet meditation …and a timeless song every songwriter wishes they could write. Bob Seger is one of the few who has at least one of these in their cannon.
Night Moves
I was a little too tall could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants points hardly renowned
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own sitting way up high
Way up firm and high
Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my ’60 Chevy
Workin’ on mysteries without any clues
Workin’ on our night moves
Tryin’ to make some front page drive-in news
Workin’ on our night moves
In the summertime
In the sweet summertime
We weren’t in love oh no far from it
We weren’t searchin’ for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Livin’ by the sword
And we’d steal away every chance we could
Backroom to the alley or the trusty woods
I used her she used me but neither one cared
We were gettin’ our share
Workin’ on our night moves
Tryin’ to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin’ on our night moves
And it was summertime
Sweet summertime summertime
Oh I wonder
Felt the lightning yeah
Waited on the thunder
Waited on the thunder
I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started hummin’ a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closin’ in
Night moves
(Night moves) Night moves
(Night moves) Yeah
(Night moves) Remember
(Night moves) Ah, sure remember the night moves
(Night moves) Ain’t it funny how you remember
(Night moves) I remember
(Night moves) I remember I remember I remember
Outro
The second single was the more downbeat “Mainstreet.”
For the third and final single, “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” Seger drew inspiration from his high school reunion. He was 31 at the time and wanted to write a song for folks his age and older about their youth.
Much like “Night Moves,” this is another reflection on aging:
So you’re a little bit older
And a lot less bolder than you used to be
So you used to shake ’em down
But now you stop and think about your dignity
So now sweet sixteen’s turned thirty-one
Note that the song is about aging, not dying. It also speaks to the redemptive power of rock and roll. “Rock and Roll Never Forgets” is the more raucous of the three singles, and it brought out all of Seger’s influences, like Chuck Berry, who gets a shout-out in the last verse:
Well all of Chuck’s children are out there playing his licks
Get into your kicks
Come back baby, rock and roll never forgets
CRITICS:
Robert Christgau gave it an A- writing: “But this album is a journeyman’s apotheosis. The riffs that identify each of these nine songs comprise a working lexicon of the Berry-Stones tradition, and you’ve heard them many times before; in fact, that may be the point, because Seger and his musicians reanimate every one with their persistence and conviction. both virtues also come across in lyrics as hard-hitting as the melodies, every one of which asserts the continuing functionality of rock and roll for “sweet sixteens turned thirty-one.”
Kit Rachlis from his original review in Rolling Stone, said: “If there is any grace in heaven, Night Moves will give Bob Seger the national following which has long eluded him. It is simply one of the best albums of the year.”
If you listen to “Night Moves” today, it sounds just as good as it must’ve sounded in 1976 and as good as it will sound in another 44 years.
It’s the rare artist who can drill down deep enough to create something so concise that it can connect with the masses and do it so adroitly. It could make an argument for divine intervention (if one believes in such things).
Or it could also be just a damn fine song written about reflecting on a former lover.
The album Night Moves made Bob Seger became the face and the voice of both the Midwesterner and the sensitive, reflective man, who could still rock a blue-collar.
If you like what you read, you can buy me a cup of coffee to support my irrational love of coffee …and help support the writing.