About The Song
“Shadows of the Night” is a song composed by D.L. Byron explicitly for the 1980 film Times Square, which tells the story of two young runaways in New York City. The song did not make it into the movie and Byron’s own record label rejected it, claiming the song “wasn’t commercial enough.”
It was released as a single by Helen Schneider in 1981 as well as on her album Schneider with the Kick. According to Byron, Schneider’s version went 5× platinum in Germany and the Benelux countries. This successful song is not mentioned in her own biography. Another version with slightly different lyrics was released by Rachel Sweet on her album …And Then He Kissed Me, also in 1981.
The most famous version was then released in September 1982 by American rock singer Pat Benatar, as the lead single from her fourth studio album Get Nervous. Benatar’s recording reached number 3 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, the Top 15 on the US Hot 100 and in Canada, and the Top 20 in Australia. “Shadows of the Night” garnered Benatar her third Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1983. The lyrics of Benatar’s version differ slightly from both previous versions.
Benatar’s music video for the song centers around Benatar as a riveter dreaming about being a flying ace who fights in World War II. It features Judge Reinhold as a pilot and Bill Paxton as a Wehrmacht Unteroffizier. Benatar’s T-6 Texan aircraft is named Midnight Angel, a phrase also used in the song itself with a different meaning (“And now the hands of time are standin’ still/Midnight angel, won’t you say you will”).
Helen Schneider’s version has a spaceman and a goat.
Video
Lyrics
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
You said, “Oh, girl, it’s a cold world when you keep it all to yourself”
I said, “You can’t hide on the inside, all the pain you’ve ever felt”
Ransom my heart, but baby, don’t look back ’cause we got nobody else
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
You know that sometimes, it feels like, it’s all moving way too fast
Use every alibi and words you deny that love ain’t meant to last
You can cry, tough baby, it’s alright, you can let me down easy, but not tonight
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
And now the hands of time are standing still
Midnight angel, won’t you say you will?
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end
We’re running with the shadows of the night
So baby, take my hand, you’ll be alright
Surrender all your dreams to me tonight
They’ll come true in the end…