Before you read further and/or judge, please just try and remember this song was written in a different time, and when I fell in love with it, I was just short of 16 years old myself. It wasn’t gross and statutory-rapey back then. (Well, it was, I just didn’t realize that at the time…) With that disclaimer said, Into The Night will always be one of my favorite songs from the early, and then again late, eighties. It spoke of forbidden love, of a boy’s deepest feelings that he must lock away because expressing them meant excommunication. It was on my AM radio stations in those small days of hanging out in Roberta’s basement when I panged over whether to come out to her. Which I didn’t, because I was too terrified. Then, years later, the song was back on the pop charts in the summer of love when Vincent and Rosie and Janet and I would drive to Kiss in Ronkonkoma, punctuating my journey from who I was the first time I’d ever heard it. The pop charts of the year 1980 are littered with songs like this one, songs that will always remain dear to me, reminding me of that frightened boy I left behind so long ago.
From the historical writing archive. Original date: October 31, 2017. Recovered from local source material; editorial review is still in progress.
