Tuesday Tunes - Eddie And The Cruisers - On The Dark Side

 Eddie And The Cruisers - On The Dark Side

John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgIsyoxZ7Uw

(We watched “On The Dark Side” years ago, and we both thought it was ‘okay’. The song appealed to me a lot at that time for whatever reason. If you haven’t heard it, maybe you’ll enjoy it. It’s written to be a movie tune so the lyrics are few, but I still enjoyed it.)

The dark side's coming now, nothing is real
She'll never know just how I feel
From out of the shadows, she walks like a dream
Make me feel crazy, make me feel so mean

 

Aint' nothing's gonna save ya from a love that's blind
Slip through the dark side and cross that line

 

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

 

Dark side's coming, now nothing is real
She'll never know just how I feel
From out of the shadows, she walks like a dream
Make me feel crazy, make me feel so mean

 

Ain't nothin' gonna save ya from a love that's blind
Slip through the dark side and cross that line

 

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

 

Ain't nothin' gonna save ya from a love that's blind
Slip through the dark side and cross that line

 

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

 

On the dark side, oh yeah
On the dark side, oh yeah

The line between reality and make-believe was a bit foggy when it came to the 1984 hit single “On the Dark Side.” It was a smash for the fictional band Eddie and the Cruisers in the movie of the same name.
In fact, it was John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band who brought the song into existence, but only after taking their cues from the movie’s script.
Based on a book by P.F. Kluge, Eddie and the Cruisers, a film about a once-famous rock band whose lead singer has disappeared, arrived in theaters in 1983. The filmmakers were tasked with incorporating music that would make it sound like this band could indeed have captured the hearts of fans.
Their early efforts to do so weren’t quite on point. It wasn’t until producers talked to a man named Kenny Vance that the pieces started to fall into place. Vance had once been a member of Jay and the Americans, and he knew a thing or two about the East Coast bar-band vibe the Cruisers were supposed to embody.
Producers for the film had the song title “On the Dark Side” in place for the hit that was supposed to break Eddie and the Cruisers big. But Vance was thoroughly unimpressed by the song they played for him. He suggested they get an actual artist to write the track, and he happened to have just the band in mind to get the job done.
John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band originated in Rhode Island and had been knocking around the East Coast scene for about a decade. Vance, who had seen them play, thought they’d be perfect. He gave Cafferty the song title and let him go to work.
Cafferty came back with a song that transforms from a moody opening into a riff-heavy rocker that features sprightly saxophone from Beaver Brown member “Tunes” Antunes. It sounded like a perfect fit. One problem: The movie did poorly at the box office, and the single went nowhere.
Luckily, the movie’s arrival on cable TV in 1984 gave it a new lease on life. In addition, the fact that Cafferty and company’s sound bore a resemblance to that of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band didn’t hurt, especially with Born in the U.S.A. arriving in the summer of ’84 and taking off. “On the Dark Side” was rereleased and rose to No. 7 on the U.S. pop charts.