The rotation of the earth lends itself too easily to metaphor, the binary of day and night serving as the foundation of a thousand myths. The sun makes life possible, and in opposition the night tells a different story.
In 1977 Gary Gilmore was executed, the first case of capital punishment in the US in a decade. He didn’t hesitate, waiving all appeals and opposing those filed by other parties. When asked for his last words, he famously responded “Let’s do it.” A couple of years later The Police wrote “Bring on the Night,” based on a Ted Hughes poem but, according to Sting, sung with Gilmore’s execution in mind.
A death wish and the freedom of the dance floor aren’t leagues apart in their desire for release. Thirty years after Gilmore’s death, Cloudkickers covered “Bring on the Night” and it’s Rocco’s TroDeep Remix that captures me, peeling away the post-punk build of the original and the overburdened percussion of the cover to make a mantra of the song. Marcus (of Antibalas) plaintively repeats that he “couldn’t stand another hour of daylight,” ready for a night on the dance floor but not sounding too thrilled about the scenario that brought him there, a smoother-edged but more resigned predecessor to Rod Lee’s “Dance My Pain Away”.
Anyone who heard this track out wasn’t likely to have heard it during the day – the night would have arrived long ago for a late dance floor piece like this, marking the sentiment as a victory rather than a plea. In the last 90 seconds the track packs itself up as neatly as it unfurled, leaving the listener with the only problem Gilmore never had to face after his turn with the firing squad: what to do when the sun comes up again?