"Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" is a song recorded by

Steve Winwood Stephen Lawrence Winwood (born 12 May 1948) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter whose genres include blue-eyed soul, rhythm and blues, blues rock, and pop rock. Though primarily a keyboard player and vocalist prominent for his disti ...

for his album, '' Roll with It'', released on Virgin Records in 1988. Released as a single, it peaked at number six on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and spent two weeks at number one on the ''Billboard''

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chart.

Background and use in Michelob commercial

Prior to the 1988 release of the "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" single, the song was used in a national TV commercial for Michelob. Though some critics at the time condemned Winwood for "writing songs for business interests" (i.e., " selling out"), Winwood denied that the song had been written for the commercial. In the 27 August issue of ''Billboard'', Winwood's manager, Ron Weisner, said that Winwood granted Michelob use of the song to obtain tour sponsorship. In the 1 December issue of '' Rolling Stone'', Weisner reiterated that the song was written before the deal with Michelob was struck. In a 1990 biography, Winwood explained: "When

he album He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

was finished, but before it came out, ichelobtook the song they wanted, and very quickly shot the commercial. So what happened was the commercial came out before the album. Then the LP was released and the first single which was ' Roll With It'. Six weeks later the second single was due to be released which was the song they used for the commercial. They started putting the commercial on the TV ''before'' the single was out. It looked like I had written a beer jingle!"

Release and commercial reception

"Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" was released in 1988 as the second international single from ''Roll With It''. In the United States, the song peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, becoming his 6th and last top 10 hit, and spent 11 weeks inside the Top 40. It reached number six on the Hot 100 Airplay chart and number eight on the

Singles Sales The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in ...

chart. It also reached number two on the Adult Contemporary chart and spent two weeks atop the

chart. The song peaked at number 46 in New Zealand and number 89 in the United Kingdom.

Track listing

;7" Vinyl

Credits

– lead and backing vocals, keyboards, Fairlight programming *

Mike Lawler Michael Vincent Lawler (born September 9, 1986) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 17th congressional district since 2023. From 2021 to 2022, he was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly fro ...

– additional keyboards *

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– drums * Bashiri Johnson – percussion *

Tessa Niles Tessa Margaret Niles ( ''née'' Webb; born 27 January 1961 in Ilford, Essex) is an English singer, best known as a backing singer for a wide variety of contemporary artists. She began her professional singing career in 1979. Early life and ca ...

– backing vocals * Mark Williamson – backing vocals

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

References

{{authority control Steve Winwood songs 1988 singles Pop ballads Rock ballads Songs with lyrics by Will Jennings Songs written by Steve Winwood 1988 songs Virgin Records singles Songs about nights