Agnes / Here Comes the Night

If you had to choose your preference between a) night and b) day, what would your decision be? Perhaps, if you're a methodical kind of person, you’d like some time to think about it, maybe drawing up a list of pros and cons for each and coming up with a well thought out and entirely convincing response.

Of course while you were doing that, the rest of us were all out having a brilliant time AT NIGHT. If pop were a person, they’d say NIGHT before you even got halfway through the question. For night is when the magic happens, the place where shame and inhibition melt away and a plain-doner-no-salad-yes-chilli-sauce becomes the food of the gods. The night has a power that daytime doesn’t, probably because unwise decisions are easier to make in the dark. And that is why there are so many incredible songs about the night. Here are just a few of my personal favourites - and I bet you could come up with a shedload more without breaking a sweat.

If it Wasn’t For the Nights by ABBA

In the Night by Pet Shop Boys

Into the Nightlife by Cyndi Lauper

Nightflight to Venus by Boney M

Dance the Night by Dua Lipa 

Every Night I Say a Prayer by Little Boots 

Give Me the Night by George Benson

Amazing.

Not to do day a disservice, it’s very useful I suppose - photosynthesis, shops being open and that - but nobody is screaming to be given the day, are they? Maybe Jean Valjean is. Not many others. In fact the only pop star to successfully harness the power of both day and night is of course Dame Billie Piper with her number one smash, er, “Day and Night”. 

But I digress. My point, and I am getting to it, is that the finest night-themed records almost always have a hint of danger about them. Someone who knows this very well is Sweden’s crown princess Agnes: a god-tier pop star who takes up space in our hearts but for some reason not so much the charts. Agnes takes her place in the pantheon of all time great songs about the after-dark with the magnificent Here Comes the Night.

Of all the superb things about Here Comes the Night, my favourite is that I can easily - and frequently do - imagine it gatecrashing the video for the greatest night song of all, Summer Night City, specifically that bit on the boat where you worry slightly for Frida’s safety as she’s jigging about just a bit too much, while Agnetha clings on wearing the rictus grin of someone preparing for impending death. Now picture Agnes, aboard a glitzy powerboat, racing up Saltsjön bay in the opposite direction with her own record blasting out, spraying ABBA with freezing cold inlet water (Frida embraces the moment, Agnetha makes a mental note to get her top dry cleaned) and then, realising the pop crime she’s committed, ushers the band to the safety of her vessel, where they agree to make a record together and change pop history forever.  I may have over-fantasised about this, but you catch my drift: Here Comes the Night can compete with the classics. Which is hardly surprising as it bears all the hallmarks of an anthem for the ages: anticipation, drama, statement synths, ominous piano lingering around the chords and a breakdown that sounds like something Mozart might have rattled off on a good day, but with added beats. But the most prominent of those hallmarks is Agnes herself, delivering a hymn to the darkness with authority, defiance and respect. The night may well be fun, but it can turn on you.  Maybe that's why there's a nod to - of all things - Eye of the Tiger as proceedings start. You have to be ready for a fight as well as adventure.

The sole requirement for admission to the night is darkness, which makes it the only form of entertainment available to everyone, except perhaps people who live in Svalbard. What you choose to do with it is up to you - I personally recommend a solid eight hour sleep, but Here Comes the Night is so good that, were Agnes to rock up alongside me in her powerboat - possible where I live, although highly unlikely - I would jump on board in a heartbeat*.

*After running to get some anti-nausea pills from Boots and making enquiries about what time we’d be back.