Walkin' After Midnight

"Walkin' After Midnight" was Patsy Cline's first hit, and indeed her only hit prior to 1961, making the Top Twenty of the pop charts in 1957. Like much of her output, "Walkin' After Midnight" might have been country-pop, but there was a lot of country in the tune, starting with the catchy steel guitar riff that introduced the track. It also had a bouncy beat, somewhere between a steady walk and a slow run, that while far from rockabilly was a little funkier and more solid than much country of the time. While Cline's vocal is a little restrained in comparison with the approach she used on her better-known sides in the early 1960s, it's well-suited for the almost bemused aura of loneliness of the lyric. More than any of the other songs she recorded for the 4 Star label in the 1950s, it anticipates the successful country-pop fusion of her crossover hits for Decca in the early 1960s. Cline would in fact remake the song in 1961 for Decca, in a version that dispensed with the prominent steel guitar of the original and added countrypolitan backup vocals and piano, as well as an upwards key change for the last verse. Both versions are worthy, and because Cline's '60s material is in general far better circulated and represented on best-of compilations than her '50s releases, it may be that the 1961 remake is now more familiar than the initial rendition. Live recordings of the song have also come out on Cline's Live at the Opry (from 1957) and Live at the Cimarron Ballroom from 1961. The Cowboy Junkies, Loretta Lynn, Fairground Attraction, Katy Moffatt, and Bryan Adams are among the more prominent artists who have covered the tune.