"Black Night" is a song by British hard rock bandDeep Purple, first released as a single in June 1970 and later included on the 25th Anniversary version of their 1970 album, In Rock. The song became a hit following its release, peaking at No. 2 on UK charts, and to this day remains Deep Purple's highest charting UK single. It topped the charts in Switzerland, and is one of only two singles from the band to chart in Ireland, peaking at No. 4, thus making it the group's only Irish Top 10 hit. It was also the second non-album single penned by the band and also reached number 6 in South Africa.
Once In Rock had been completed, EMI asked for a suitable single to be recorded to help promote the album. Though Roger Glover states that Ricky Nelson's 1962 hard rocking arrangement of the George Gershwin song "Summertime" was the basis for the Mk II Deep Purple single "Black Night", it is also similar to Blues Magoos's 1966 psychedelic hit song " Nothin' Yet". In the BBC documentary Heavy Metal Britannia, keyboardist Jon Lord supports Glover's statement about the song's origin, stating "Black Night was nicked from the bass line in Ricky Nelson's Summertime" and then proceeds to play the bassline riff on his grand piano.
Live performances
"Black Night" made its way into the setlist soon after release, generally as the first encore. The song was not played in full after Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left the band in 1973, but snippets were often played by Ritchie Blackmore as part of his improvisations. On the reformation of Deep Purple in 1984 "Black Night" returned as part of the main set list. There are many versions of the song available on Deep Purple live albums.
In 1982, post-punk group The Fall took to performing a medley integrating the song into their own composition "Cash 'n' Carry"; a recording of this was belatedly issued in 2002 on a reissue of Fall in a Hole.
Metallica played the intro during the encore of their shows in 1989.
Bruce Dickinson - B side of single: "Dive, Dive, Dive", recorded live in 1990. He and his band would perform it live during the Tattooed Millionaire tour.
The main riff of the song is used to end Australian alternative rock band TISM's song "Get Thee in My Behind, Satan", from their 1990 album Hot Dogma.
In 1991, Vic Reeves covered the song on I Will Cure You album.
Bad Manners - ska version on their 1997 album Heavy Petting.
CJ Crew also covered this song for the Dancemania compilation series, but has a heavier sound to it.
