Album: D.E. #7
Year: 1982
After the relative slightness of … Twangin’, D.E. 7th was a definite comeback for Dave Edmunds. Kicking off with a one-two punch of a unreleased Springsteen song and a heavy-rocking NRBQ song, D.E. 7th suggested there could be a career for Edmunds in a post-Rockpile world.
Of course, Rockpile was missed, so while D.E. 7th never quite rose to the heights of Repeat When Necessary and Tracks on Wax 4, it does have one of my all-time favorite ballads, the exquisite “One More Night”
“One More Night” is one of those songs you’d come across after last call in a smoky cocktail lounge where everybody else has gone home and — since you didn’t even come close to scoring, and your heart still hurts anyways — you figured you’d see if the singer has one last thing he needs to express as you struggle to finish your last whiskey before staggering home.
And accompanied only by “One More Night” songwriter Liam Grundy on piano, that’s the mood Edmunds is aiming for:
I’m too tired to stand up,
I’m too drunk to sleep,
Don’t know how I’m gonna get homeI’ve said all my goodbyes,
I’m trying to keep,
I’m spending the evening alone
As the piano builds, he explains that he’s just been through a breakup, and he’s taking it kinda hard. He’s not sure where he’s going to go, and what he’s going to do, and and in fact, he’s really only sure of one thing.
And I miss you at the door
when I forget my keys
And I wish you’d come back
I’m down on my kneesIt all seems such a shame
‘Cause I still see your light
And I wish I could come back
And stay one more night
The ache in Edmunds’ voice perfectly mirrors the words. Please, just one more night. Just one more hit. Yes, I know that it will make things worse in the future, but I can’t think of a future, because I can’t think of a future without you, so maybe I can stay one more night every single night, like a sexual AA or something.
One of the great things about “One More Night” is that there doesn’t seem to be any blame involved. She’s not some terrible shrew that sent him packing for no reason, he’s not a cad who messed up. I mean, it’s possible that either of those things are true, but they don’t even show up as subtext, much less text.
And in the end, you know that it never happened. And that part of him never got over it.
Fan-made video for “One More Night”