"This Flight Tonight" is a song originally by
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
, from her 1971 album ''
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
''. Scottish
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
band
Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
released the song as a single in 1973 that charted internationally.
Original recording
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
wrote and released the song on her 1971 album ''
Blue
Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...
''. The song tells of Mitchell's regrets as she leaves her lover on a flight and wishes to return. The track was also released as the
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...
of "
Carey
Carey may refer to:
Names
* Carey (given name), a given name
* Carey (surname), a surname
** List of people with surname Carey
Places Canada
* Carey Group, British Columbia; in the Pacific
* Carey Island (Nunavut) in James Bay
United Kingdom
* ...
".
Mitchell plays guitar and sings, and was the
producer;
was the
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
.
Nazareth cover
Scottish
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
band
Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
reworked the song in 1973 to make it their own with a powerful, driving hard-rock treatment which was a hit in Canada, Germany (where it reached number one) and the UK. It was produced by
Roger Glover
Roger David Glover (born 30 November 1945) is a Welsh bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the member of the hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. As a member of Deep Purple, Glover was inducted into the Rock and Ro ...
. The single reached number 11 in the UK charts in November 1973. The band re-recorded the song in 1991 for the album ''
No Jive''.
Writing in ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' in 2012,
Robert Webb
Robert Patrick Webb (born 29 September 1972) is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is one half of the double act Mitchell and Webb, alongside David Mitchell. Webb and Mitchell both starred in the Channel 4 sitco ...
said:
The Dunfermline hard-rockers Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In ...
loved ''Blue''. You remember them: the gap-toothed vocalist, Dan McCafferty
William Daniel McCafferty (14 October 1946 – 8 November 2022) was a vocalist and songwriter best known as the lead singer for the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth from its founding in 1968 to his retirement from touring with the band in 2013.
...
, had hair like a kitchen scourer and a voice to match. They were bad, bad boys. Among the tracks on their 1973 album ''Loud 'n' Proud
''Loud 'n' Proud'' is the fourth studio album by the Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, and their second to be released in 1973. It is the first of two albums the band released to reach #1 in the Austrian charts.
Track listing
1996 Castle C ...
'', produced by the former Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock music, but their musical style has changed over the course of its existence. Ori ...
bassist Roger Glover
Roger David Glover (born 30 November 1945) is a Welsh bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the member of the hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. As a member of Deep Purple, Glover was inducted into the Rock and Ro ...
, is a taut version of "This Flight". "We used to listen to Joni as we were travelling round in the van," recalls Nazareth's bass-player, Pete Agnew. "'This Flight Tonight' was a big favourite."
Mitchell was impressed with the makeover: "When she was recording at A&M, we were just starting an American tour," explains Agnew. "We all happened to be in the studio the day the single was released, so we were introduced to her and told her what we had done. She said, 'What, with a rock band?'" Joni paid the Scottish band the greatest compliment after "This Flight Tonight" became a worldwide hit for them, touching down at No 11 in the UK. "She was playing a gig in London and told the audience: 'I'd like to open with a Nazareth song'!".
Nancy Wilson revealed that the guitar riff for Nazareth's version of "This Flight Tonight" inspired the riff for the
Heart
The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide t ...
song "
Barracuda
A barracuda, or cuda for short, is a large, predatory, ray-finned fish known for its fearsome appearance and ferocious behaviour. The barracuda is a saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was ...
".
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
References
{{Authority control
1971 songs
Joni Mitchell songs
Songs written by Joni Mitchell
Nazareth (band) songs
Song recordings produced by Joni Mitchell
1973 singles
Song recordings produced by Roger Glover
Mooncrest Records singles