Only After Dark
| "Only After Dark" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by The Human League | ||||
| from the album Travelogue | ||||
| B-side | "Toyota City" | |||
| Released | May 1980 | |||
| Format | 7" Vinyl Single | |||
| Recorded | Monumental Studios, Sheffield, England | |||
| Genre | Synthpop, new wave | |||
| Length | 3:51 | |||
| Label | Virgin Records | |||
| Writer(s) | Ronson/Richardson | |||
| Producer(s) | Colin Thurston | |||
| The Human League singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Only After Dark" is a song by English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and producer Mick Ronson. Co-written with Scott Richardson, it was on Ronson's 1974 debut solo album Slaughter on 10th Avenue; an album Ronson released shortly after leaving David Bowie's backing band The Spiders from Mars. It was the B-side to Ronson's second solo single "Love Me Tender"; a song made famous by Elvis Presley.
Cover Versions
In 1980, British synthpop group The Human League, recorded a version for the band's second album, Travelogue. The Human League's version was produced by Colin Thurston.[1]
The song was pressed as a single by Virgin Records following the release of the Travelogue album, but it was then decided to re-release the song "Empire State Human" (from the band's first album) instead and include "Only After Dark" as a free single to be given away with the first 15,000 copies of "Empire State Human". This was perceived by the band as a total lack of faith in their newer material, causing great resentment and anger,[2] and would be one of the issues that contributed to the split of this line-up of The Human League some months later. As a free single it wasn't included in the UK chart mechanism, though the re-release of "Empire State Human" to which it belonged peaked at #62.[3][4]
Fellow Sheffield band, Def Leppard covered "Only After Dark" in 1992, as a b-side to their UK #2 hit single, "Let's Get Rocked". Their version was later included on the 1993 compilation Retro Active; a collection of touched-up versions of B-sides and previously unreleased recordings from the band's recording sessions between 1984 and 1993.
References
- ↑ "The Human League". The-black-hit-of-space.dk. Retrieved 2016-10-16.
- ↑ "THE HUMAN LEAGUE Blind Youth - the complete guide to The Human League 1977-1980". Blindyouth.co.uk. 2013-04-09. Retrieved 2016-10-16.
Philip Oakey: Which is why we had a very big argument with Virgin Records over Only After Dark, which they pressed without telling us.
- ↑ "THE HUMAN LEAGUE Blind Youth - the complete guide to The Human League 1977-1980". Blindyouth.co.uk. 2013-04-09. Retrieved 2016-10-16.
- ↑