"The Night Chicago Died" is a song by the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
group
Paper Lace
Paper Lace are a British pop/rock band, formed in Nottingham, who rose to success in 1974 and during that year had three UK Top 40 hit singles. In the United States they are considered a one-hit wonder, having a single US top 40 hit. There are ...
, written by
Peter Callander
Peter Robin Callander (10 October 1939 – 25 February 2014) was an English songwriter and record producer. Active from the 1960s onwards, Callander wrote or co-wrote songs that have been performed by recording artists such as Cilla Black, Tom ...
and
Mitch Murray
Mitch Murray (born Lionel Michael Stitcher; 30 January 1940) is an English songwriter, record producer and author. He has won two Ivor Novello Awards, including the Jimmy Kennedy Award. Murray has written, or co-written, songs that have produ ...
. The song reached number one on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart for one week in 1974, reached number 3 in the UK charts, and number 2 in Canada. It is about a fictional shoot-out between the
Chicago Police
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...
and members of the
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...
Syndicate
A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest.
Etymology
The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French language, Frenc ...
. The narrator retells his mother's anguish while awaiting news of the fate of her husband, a Chicago policeman. The song is featured in the theatrical trailer of the 2000 comedy-drama film ''
High Fidelity'', and featured in a Season 1 episode of ''
That '70s Show
''That '70s Show'' is an American television Period piece, period teen sitcom that aired on Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox from August 23, 1998, to May 18, 2006. The series focuses on the lives of a group of six teenage friends living in the ficti ...
''. This song begins with an electronic synthesizer sound impersonating a police siren. The first four lines in the Intro are spoken by the group. It also features the sound of a ticking clock, heard in the third verse.
History
"The Night Chicago Died" was Paper Lace's follow-up single to "
Billy Don't Be a Hero
"Billy Don't Be a Hero" is a 1974 pop music, pop song that was first a UK hit for Paper Lace and then, some months later, a US hit for Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods. The song was written and composed by two British songwriters, Mitch Murray an ...
", a No. 1 hit in the U.K. but virtually unheard in the U.S. where
Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods' cover reached No. 1. Callander and Murray wrote both songs.
The U.S. single received a
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...
certification from the
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...
, signifying sales of at least half a million copies. Though the song's story is set in the United States, Paper Lace were unable to perform the song live in the U.S. at the height of its popularity because of contractual issues.
Accuracy
"The Night Chicago Died" is about a shoot-out between the Chicago Police and
gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
s tied to Al Capone. It was inspired by the real-life
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago garage on the morning of February 14, ...
,
although that involved Capone's men killing seven of
Bugs Moran
George Clarence "Bugs" Moran (; Adelard Leo Cunin; August 21, 1893 – February 25, 1957) was an American Chicago Prohibition-era gangster. He was incarcerated three times before his 21st birthday. Seven members of his gang were gunned dow ...
's gang members and had nothing to do with the police. No confrontation large enough to leave around one hundred police deaths ever happened. Al Capone was arrested in 1932 for income tax evasion.
The song's events supposedly take place "on the East Side of Chicago". Chicago has three commonly referred-to regions: the North Side, the West Side and the South Side. There is no East Side, as
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...
is immediately east of Downtown Chicago. While there is an area of Chicago known as "
East Side", it is a neighborhood on the Far South Side on the Illinois/
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
state line. East Side is also several miles away from where Capone lived on
Prairie Avenue
Prairie Avenue is a north–south street on the South Side of Chicago, which historically extended from 16th Street in the Near South Side to the city's southern limits and beyond. The street has a rich history from its origins as a major trail ...
in Chicago. Furthermore, in the 1920s, East Side was known for being a quiet, residential, and predominantly Eastern European neighborhood—a sharp contrast from the site of the bloodbath described in the song.
Songwriters Peter Callender and Mitch Murray said in interviews (most notably on ''
Beat Club
''Beat-Club'' is a West Germany, West German music programme that ran from September 1965 to December 1972. It was broadcast from Bremen (city), Bremen, West Germany on Das Erste, ''Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen'', the national public TV channel of ...
'' shortly after the song's smash success) that they had never been to Chicago before that time, and that their knowledge of the city and that period of its history had been based on gangster films. (Callender defended his interpretation of Chicago's geography by saying, "There's an East Side of everywhere!")
As reported by History.com:
Paper Lace sent the song to the mayor of Chicago,
Richard Daley, who greatly disliked it. A member of Daley's staff is quoted as saying that Paper Lace should "jump in the Chicago River, placing your heads under water three times and surfacing twice. Pray tell us, are you nuts?”
Chart performance
Weekly singles charts
Year-end charts
Covers
* In 1974
Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...
n singer
Mirla Castellanos
Mirla Castellanos, is a noted Venezuelan singer with a career spanning over 40 years. Often referred to as "La Primerísima", she started her career as a singer with the band "Cuarteto Los Naipes" in the 1960s before taking up a solo career. She h ...
recorded her version of this song (translated into
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
by her husband at the time,
Miguel Ángel Landa
Miguel Ángel Landa (born November 4, 1936) is a Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consistin ...
) titled "La Noche De Chicago", which appeared on her album of the same name. Subsequently, Castellanos made a new version of this song, which was included in her 1984 compilation album ''16 Grandes Éxitos''.
* Also, in 1974,
Mexican group La Super Banda Macho recorded their own version of this song in Spanish titled "La Noche Que Murió Chicago", whose lyrics are very different from the previous version.
* In March 1975 the
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
singer
Vicky Rosti
Virve Hannele "Vicky" Rosti (born 10 November 1958, Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish singer of popular music. Her most famous songs include "Kun Chicago kuoli" (the debut single from 1975, a Finnish language cover version of " The Night Chicago Di ...
recorded this song in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
titled "Kun Chicago kuoli" (When Chicago Died), which was her debut single. She reached the number one position in Finnish charts with the single by
Midsummer
Midsummer is a celebration of the season of summer usually held at a date around the summer solstice. It has pagan pre-Christian roots in Europe.
The undivided Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian mart ...
.
The Finnish lyrics are almost verbatim translation of the English originals.
* In 1994 Mexican group
Banda Toro recorded this song titled "La Noche Que Chicago Murió" in a
Banda music
Banda is a genre of Regional Mexican music and type of ensemble in which wind (mostly brass) and percussion instruments are performed.
The history of banda music in Mexico dates from the middle of the 19th century with the arrival of piston br ...
style (but with the same lyrics of La Super Banda Macho's version). This song appeared on their debut album ''Banda Toro''.
* In 2004 Mexican group
Banda Machos covered this song titled "La Noche Que Murió Chicago" —which sounds very similar to the La Super Banda Macho's version— as part of their album ''Pura Pasión''.
* In 2006, Korean group
Super Junior-K.R.Y. released a cover of this song entitled "The Night Chicago Died" in the Korean language, for the 2006 Korean legal drama ''
Hyena'' for its
soundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' ...
. Their cover has the same melody, but the lyrics were entirely revised.
Notes
*"The Night Chicago Died" is used with some
irony
Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique.
Irony can be categorized into ...
by
Fox Mulder
Fox William Mulder () is a fictional FBI Special Agent and one of the two protagonists of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series ''The X-Files'', played by David Duchovny. Mulder's peers dismiss his many theories on extraterrest ...
on "
Die Hand Die Verletzt
"Die Hand Die Verletzt" is the fourteenth episode of the second season of the science fiction television series ''The X-Files''. It premiered on the Fox network on January 27, 1995. It was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, directed by Kim M ...
" episode of ''
The X-Files
''The X-Files'' is an American science fiction on television, science fiction drama (film and television), drama television series created by Chris Carter (screenwriter), Chris Carter. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation ...
'' as an example of "Devil's music".
* On download and streaming sites, Paper Lace's recording is miscredited to the 1980s dance group
Pretty Poison.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Night Chicago Died
1974 singles
British pop rock songs
Paper Lace songs
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in New Zealand
Songs written by Mitch Murray
Songs written by Peter Callander
1974 songs
Philips Records singles
Mercury Records singles
Juno Award for Best Selling Single singles
Cultural depictions of Al Capone