Calling Sister Midnight: 5 Songs About Midnight

This week's songs are from Al Bowlly, Mock Orange, Niliufer Yanya, Frightened Rabbit, and Elvis Presley

RIP Perry Bamonte

The Cure is mostly a Robert Smith project given he’s the only constant member of its 47-year history. But many others have contributed and Perry Bamonte was among them. I assumed The Cure was more of a studio band until I was lucky enough to see their 3-hour marathon headlining set at Riot Fest in 2023. Bamonte started as Smith’s guitar tech and gradually entered the touring band as a keyboardist and ultimately a guitarist. He made recording contributions as well, and happens to play on my favorite Cure song.

The Cure - “A Letter to Elise”

The Cure have like 4 different types of songs—moody drones, pop songs, lush and melancholy ballads, and apocalyptic rockers. “A Letter to Elise” manages to merge a number of them into a single package. From 1992’s Wish, the song took inspiration from Franz Kafka’s A Letter to Felice and David Bowie’s “A Letter to Hermione” and made its debut as part of The Cure’s Unplugged set. I love how lush it sounds and like many Cure songs it’s impossible to pick apart the many layers of instruments and textures mixed together that give it such a powerful sweep. The crash cymbals sound particularly huge and while it builds to a crescendo of sorts, it comes back down a bit to end with a grace note. Smith’s vocal performance is also quite dynamic moment to moment as he moves through the shifting emotions as he sings the letter.

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Happy New Year, everybody!

The funny thing about Midnight, likely a holdover from being a kid, is the assumption that midnight is an excessively late hour. Being a bit of a night owl, Midnight is my typical bed time. It marks the end of whatever day has just been had. And late night reflection typically looks backwards. But on New Year’s Eve, for some reason people only tend to look at the future.

Here are 5 songs about midnight.

Al Bowlly - “Midnight the Stars and You”

Al Bowlly was born in Mozambique to a Greek father and Lebanese mother. He was raised in South Africa, and rose to fame as a crooner in the UK—at a time when crooning (a new style, courtesy of microphone technology) was considered “against the national character.” He was killed during the Blitz in 1941, while asleep in his bed. British radio listeners were known to complain that Bowlly’s music was “too hard to dance to,” but “Midnight the Stars and You” has the sepia warmth and a pace that feels open enough to keep a lighter step on pace with the music, or dance a little slower with the vocal melody. If it sounds a little bit familiar, the song has a close connection to New Years Eve: it plays over the final shot of The Shining.

Mock Orange - “Twelve O’clock Call”

Within my first few weeks of going to college, I went to a house party a few blocks from my dorm with someone I barely knew. They had some loose affiliation to whoever’s house it was. It’s a type of situation that I would avoid likely at all costs now, but never underestimate a college freshman’s desperation in stretching their social boundaries. I entered this house, grabbed a beer from the fridge and don’t think I ever left the kitchen. I somehow almost immediately got into a conversation about music with a long-haired fuzzy-sweater wearing guy in Chuck Taylors named Bo and spent almost the whole night chatting him up. I have a distinct memory of this because the person I went with took a picture with me and my new best friend that I kept for years. He recommended a band he’d grown up with in Evansville, IN named Mock Orange who were recording their third album. I went back to my dorm and downloaded their album The Record Play and was thrilled that my new best friend was absolutely right about how much I would like Mock Orange. College suddenly felt promising—meeting interesting and engaged people with great taste in music. But I never saw Bo again, and mostly spent those four years tolerating the ubiquity of Lil Jon, Usher, 50 Cent, and Eric Prydz at nearly every social event I went to. I still listen to Mock Orange though.

Everything about their music feels melodic. Even the drums are played with a fluidity that serves the song. You could label it “emo” or “math rock” or anything punk adjacent. “Twelve O'clock Call” is more likely about waking up around noon than it is Midnight—but that’s debatable. It’s a sound similar to fellow turn-of-the-century Midwesterners American Football, where even when they’re hitting crescendos, it doesn’t feel particularly all that loud. And it’s got wintery vibes to it that I can’t easily explain.

Frightened Rabbit - “Fast Blood”

Off of Frightened Rabbit’s masterful Midnight Organ Fight, “Fast Blood” is the song that gives the album its name. It’s tender and wounded and regretful and wanting. Frontman and songwriter Scott Hutchison could be creative in the explicitness of his images. Unless you’re particularly quick on the uptake, what exactly a “midnight organ fight” sounds harmless until it’s placed in the context of the song here—which is filled with emotions, memories, and thoughts that arrive around midnight. But those images are built around a sensitivity and earnestness that’s hard to fake. With Frightened Rabbit you can hear it in the opening chords of the song, the stammering drums, and of course through Hutchison’s Brogue-accented yelp.

Nilüfer Yanya - “Midnight Sun”

Nilüfer Yanya’s last album appeared in number of Best of 2024 lists, which is how I must’ve come across her work. It’s hard to pin down her sound, but it’s kind of Massive Attack-lite? “Midnight Sun” has the trip-hop beats and atmosphere before cutting out to a swell of acoustic guitars for a pretty catchy, if moody, chorus.

Elvis Presley - “It’s Midnight”

Now this is what midnight is all about—some real dark-night-of-the-soul stuff. More like: it’s getting close to last call and somebody doesn’t want to sleep alone tonight. In truth, Elvis struggled to record the song during a difficult 1973 session at Stax Records. Its theme hit a little too close to home for him after his split with Priscilla. But the song resonated, and entered the Top Ten on the country charts, despite being a B-side to his core of Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land.” The light acoustic guitar, rolling drums, and electric piano in the first few bars sound like the could be from The Allman Brothers’ Eat a Peach until the King enters with a hammy vocal track meant to dazzle a matinee crowd at the International Hotel. That said, it still works, maybe in part because we know just how true the emotions were behind the song. Despite the difficulties recording it, it clearly resonated, as Elvis included it frequently in set lists for those Vegas performances.