# The Bruce Springsteen Song Patti Smith Rewrote Into the Biggest Hit of Her Career
By 1978, Patti Smith had already become one of the defining figures of New York's emerging punk scene.
She was a poet, writer and uncompromising performer whose work blurred the boundaries between literature and rock and roll.
But the song that would give Smith her biggest mainstream hit began with someone else.
Bruce Springsteen had started it.
Then Patti Smith made it her own.
Springsteen Had a Song He Couldn't Finish
During the sessions for Darkness on the Edge of Town, Springsteen was working on a composition called “Because the Night.”
The musical foundation and chorus were there, but he wasn't satisfied with the song for his own album.
At roughly the same time, Patti Smith was recording Easter at New York's Record Plant.
The connection between the two sessions was producer Jimmy Iovine.
Iovine was working with both artists and believed Springsteen's unfinished composition could be ideal for Smith.
Eventually, a recording of the song reached her.
Patti Smith Initially Wasn't Looking for Someone Else's Song
Smith was an artist with a fiercely individual identity.
Taking another songwriter's unfinished material wasn't necessarily an obvious choice.
But she heard something inside the composition.
Rather than simply recording Springsteen's existing words, Smith reshaped the lyric.
The result became a genuine collaboration, with Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith sharing songwriting credit.
Smith transformed the song's emotional perspective into something intensely personal.
A Late-Night Phone Call Changed the Lyrics
One of the most memorable parts of the song's history involves Fred “Sonic” Smith, the MC5 guitarist who would later become Patti Smith's husband.
At the time, the two were involved in a long-distance relationship.
Smith later described working on the lyrics while waiting for a scheduled late-night phone call from Fred.
That sense of longing entered the song.
Suddenly, what had begun as an unfinished Springsteen composition became a declaration of desire shaped by Patti Smith's own life.
The title remained.
The emotional center changed.
1978: Punk Poetry Met the Pop Charts
“Because the Night” appeared on the Patti Smith Group's album Easter and was released as a single in 1978.
The result was something Smith had never experienced on this scale.
The song reached No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the biggest American hit of her career.
In Britain, it reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart.
For an artist closely associated with the raw downtown New York scene, this was a remarkable crossover.
Patti Smith had entered mainstream pop radio without surrendering the emotional intensity that made her different.
CBGB Had Already Changed Her Life
Smith's path to that moment had been unconventional.
She arrived in New York as a young poet and became connected with the city's artistic underground.
Her performances combined spoken poetry with rock music.
The emerging scene around CBGB brought together artists including Television, Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads.
Smith's 1975 debut album, Horses, produced by John Cale, became one of the foundational records associated with punk's development.
Yet Smith never fit comfortably into a single genre.
She drew from garage rock, poetry, R&B, improvisation and classic rock and roll.
That made “Because the Night” less of a commercial betrayal than it might have appeared.
It was simply another way of combining poetry with rock.
Springsteen Didn't Lose the Song
The collaboration created an unusual situation.
“Because the Night” became famous through Patti Smith, but Springsteen continued performing versions of it live.
Over the years, listeners have heard different lyrical approaches reflecting the song's dual authorship.
Rather than diminishing Smith's version, that history makes it more fascinating.
Two major artists saw different possibilities inside the same musical idea.
Springsteen supplied the foundation.
Smith found the words that helped turn it into a hit.
The Hit Opened a Door—but Smith Never Became a Conventional Pop Star
After “Because the Night,” Smith could theoretically have pursued mainstream chart success more aggressively.
That wasn't the path she chose.
Following Wave in 1979, she stepped away from the music industry for several years and built a life with Fred Smith in Detroit.
She eventually returned to recording and performing, while her reputation continued expanding far beyond the commercial performance of any individual single.
Her influence reached punk, alternative rock, indie music and generations of women who saw in Smith a model for artistic independence.
From Downtown Poet to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
In 2007, Patti Smith was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
By then, Horses had long been regarded as a landmark album, and Smith's importance as a writer and performer extended beyond conventional rock stardom.
She also became an acclaimed author.
Her memoir Just Kids, centered partly on her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2010.
The young poet who entered New York's underground had become an American cultural figure.
The Song That Needed Two Writers
“Because the Night” remains a perfect example of how unpredictable great songs can be.
Bruce Springsteen had the musical idea but didn't complete it for his own album.
Jimmy Iovine recognized another possibility.
Patti Smith heard the unfinished song and connected it to her own longing for Fred Smith.
Then she rewrote it from inside that experience.
The result belonged completely to neither artist alone.
It required both.
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And in 1978, that unlikely creative handoff gave Patti Smith the biggest pop hit of her career.
Listen to “Because the Night”
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