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Writer's pictureHeshy R

Daily Lyric: RAY-BAN (SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT)

Updated: Jan 30

Nine-to-five boredom, summertime blues

No time to take it easy, you’re still paying your dues

Spend eight hours under the boss’ oppressive gaze

When that last minute rolls around, your mind is in a daze

You swear you’re gonna cut it loose, that’s what you’re gonna do

‘Cause all your life you’ve been chained to this town where nothing’s ever new

The child has grown, the birds have flown, and the wind she’s blowing free

You had enough of this nothing life, so now you wanna flee

So when you feel the pressure come down at the end of the day

You just gotta slip on your Ray-Bans and hide yourself away

And when the sun goes down and nothing feels right

Put on your sunglasses and slip into the night

You say I’ve gone crazy since I joined up with this band

Well, babe, I may be crazy but at least I got my living in my hand

In high school you’d be cracking those books until your hands would bleed

While I was the one voted least likely to succeed

You went out to seek a profession

I went on to become a musician

And now look at who’s well off and who’s unemployed

No chance of succeeding, all your hopes and dreams destroyed

So when the heat is coming down and you don’t know who to blame

Then Incognito is the name of the game

Now that your everyday is on a downturn and you wanna make it right

Put on your sunglasses and you’re ready for the night

Well, everyone knows that beggars can’t be choosers

So what they’re given is all that they can take

But the ones who think they’re the machers are really the losers

They think they got it all, but it’s all a fake

I overestimated you, I thought you knew better

Than to give it all up without a fight

Don’t give up the hope, you won’t be lost forever

Keep on believing and that hope will shine its light

That hope will shine its light

On you tonight

So when you feel the heat come down at the end of the day

Just slip on your Ray-Bans and hide yourself away

And the sunset is here and nothing feels right

Put on your sunglasses and slip into the night

©2023 The Hesh Inc.

Heshy's bitstrips avatar w/sunglasses
I wear my sunglasses at night.

This song came about in 1984, after a conversation I had with a friend from high school who had told me, after listening to my music, that he was going to slave away in college with the goal of becoming a doctor and ending up in debt till age 70, while I would become a millionaire rock star by age 20. (It didn't quite turn out that way.) The music came to me around the same time while noodling on the piano at home. I turned the whole thing into my take on Bruce Springsteen's "Night," wrapping the whole thing in the motif of wearing my sunglasses at night, an affectation I had adopted during my tenure as a too-cool teenager. Oddly enough, the title had nothing to do with Corey Hart's hit "Sunglasses at Night" from around the same time, which I hadn't yet heard.

In December 1984, I recorded this song, along with three others, at a studio in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Geula in Jerusalem run by and belonging to a fellow named Ariel, an unassuming Hasidic Jew originally from Argentina. The neighborhood and Ariel's outward appearance totally belied the fact that he was a wicked Hammond organ player and owner of a vast and eclectic record collection ... two things not usually associated with Hasidic Judaism. It was the first time I recorded with a Hammond (it was an M3), and also the first session I ever played in which the music truly came together and sounded like Rock. The other musicians at these sessions were my old friend Izzy Kieffer on drums, Eitan Kirsch on bass, and Moshe Gershenfeld on guitar. It's funny how these songs were recorded amidst all these Judaic/Israeli elements and yet came out sounding like an American rock record from the late 1970s. It is a testament to the professionalism of these players (and engineer) that we were able to pull this off.


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