Waiting For The Night

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Waiting For The Night
Song	Waiting For The Night
By	Depeche Mode
Songwriter	Martin L. Gore
Produced by	Depeche Mode Flood
Recorded at	Puk Studios, Denmark and Logic Studios, Milan
Length (mm:ss)	6:12
Tempo	91 BPM
Time signature	4 4
Key	B♭ Minor
Engineering assistance	Daryl Bamonte Dick Meaney David Browne Mark Flannery
Mixed by	François Kevorkian
Recorded	May 1989 – January 1990
Originally released	19 March 1990
Live performances as Depeche Mode	290 times *
Total live performances	290 times *

"Waiting For The Night" is a song from the 1990 album Violator by Depeche Mode.

Notes

This song is sometimes erroneously titled by fans as "Waiting For The Night To Fall". According to Alan Wilder on Shunt Q&A ARCHIVES  : DEPECHE MODE  : VIOLATOR, about halfway down the page; the original title for the song was not "Waiting For The Night To Fall".

On the same Shunt Q&A Archives, a fan asks:

Fergus: One question I've been dying to ask is just how you created the loop for 'Waiting For The Night'? Did you use an arpeggiator? How did you get the loop to change key?

A: "Flood and I had been listening to Tangerine Dream and decided to try and create a similar atmosphere for this track. The main sequence was put together using his ARP and the sequencer that accompanies the synth. Due to its many velocity and filtering possibilities, this unit has a unique quality which is difficult to replicate using a modern-day sequencer triggered by MIDI. Once it has been set-up, in order for the sequence to be transposed to follow the chord structure of the song, I needed to play in each chord change from an external keyboard. A similar principal was applied to achieve the bubbling bass part which, together with the main sequence, forms the backbone of the track. The charm of the ARP sequencer stems from the slight tuning and timing variations that occur each time the part is played. This gives a sense of fluidity and continual change which seems to suit the song."

Alan Wilder elaborated on this for Electricity Club in 2011:

"The main sequencer part here was produced using the ARP 2600 synth and sequencer, because it has many flaws when setting up your 16 note sequence (for example tuning and gate length) – this makes for happy accidents and almost random events. We would have fiddled around with that sequence for a while, tweaking the filters and envelopes within the ARP until we arrived at that particularly hypnotic end result. The resulting sequence shape would follow any held note on a keyboard to transpose between the song's basic chord changes as it ran, which we would then record, and that is essentially the spine of the whole thing. All the other sounds in that song act as mere embellishment."

When Martin Gore was asked by The Boston Globe to explain this song, he said:

"I spend the day waiting for the night. It's a natural, perfect conclusion to the day."

In 2006, all of Depeche Mode's studio albums were being remastered. Engineer Kevin Paul told Sound On Sound magazine:

"'Waiting For The Night' was a particularly hard song — not hard to recreate but complicated. It has something like 15 different delays in it — there are loads of little spins on the end of lines of vocals and drums, and it is amazing. I had the recall notes from Violator, so I knew what [Depeche Mode] were using and what effects, and I had to try and piece together the recall notes with the music. Some of the effects I had to just try to do my best to recreate, by bouncing the delays and using distortion. It is actually one of the songs I enjoy the most in 5.1, but the process of recreating it was incredibly complex. I remember at times thinking "How would [Francois Kevorkian] do this? How could he possibly try to get that effect?" and it was a combination of three or four effects, certainly. I'd get the [Eventide] H3000s out and patch them across and try to use the presets that were written on the recall to see if it was anywhere close — sometimes it wasn't and sometimes it was. But even as you were finishing the mix you were thinking "Yeah, I've got everything, everything’s fine," and there'd be something else and you'd think "Aaargh, what's he doing?" and it would turn out to be another snare or kick drum reverb, or a delay on the bass line would suddenly shoot in."

Lyrics

Waiting For The Night

I'm waiting for the night to fall

I know that it will save us all

When everything's dark

Keeps us from the stark reality

I'm waiting for the night to fall

When everything is bearable

And there in the still

All that you feel

Is tranquility

There is a star in the sky

Guiding my way with its light

And in the glow of the moon

Know my deliverance will come soon

There is a sound in the calm

Someone is coming to harm

I press my hands to my ears

It's easier here just to forget fear

And when I squinted

The world seemed rose-tinted

And angels appeared to descend

To my surprise

With half-closed eyes

Things looked even better

Than when they were opened

Been waiting for the night to fall

I knew that it would save us all

Now everything's dark

Keeps us from the stark reality

Been waiting for the night to fall

Now everything is bearable

And here in the still

All that you feel

Is tranquility

Songwriter: Martin L. Gore
Publishing Information: ©1990 Grabbing Hands Music Ltd/EMI Music Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved.

Composition

Sample sources

"Waiting For The Night" Depeche Mode 1990	Self-made samples
	Sample	Notes			Audio
	Synthesizer elements	Wilder describes the production of this bass part in a Q&A on Shunt, the official Recoil website: Flood and I had been listening to Tangerine Dream and decided to try and create a similar atmosphere for this track. The main sequence was put together using his [ARP 2600] and the sequencer that accompanies the synth. Due to its many velocity and filtering possibilities, this unit has a unique quality which is difficult to replicate using a modern-day sequencer triggered by MIDI. Once it has been set-up, in order for the sequence to be transposed to follow the chord structure of the song, I needed to play in each chord change from an external keyboard. A similar principal was applied to achieve the bubbling bass part which, together with the main sequence, forms the backbone of the track. The charm of the ARP sequencer stems from the slight tuning and timing variations that occur each time the part is played. This gives a sense of fluidity and continual change which seems to suit the song.			✖
	Synthesized bass elements	Musician and remixer Ehron VonAllen confirmed in a YouTube analysis of his remix collaboration with Alan Wilder that Wilder employed a bass sequence originally recorded for use with "Waiting For The Night" in "Electro Blues For Bukka White".			✖
	Melodic elements, mellotron	In May 2020, fan "DMK" kindly provided DM Live Wiki with documentation for a series of Emulator II floppy disks that accompanied a collection of restored studio equipment used by Music For The Masses producer Dave Bascombe during the production of music albums for artists other than Depeche Mode in the mid to late eighties. A treated sample derived from a floppy disk labeled "Mellotron Strings (d53)" is audible as one of several layers making up a synthesized pad sound audible throughout "Waiting For The Night".			✖
	Sample sources
	Sample	Source	Status	Notes	Audio
	Vocal elements	Dmitry Damba-Darzhaa - "Край Артыы сайыр / Artyy Sayir Area" - 1969 or earlier	Confirmed	A looped chant-like sample used starting from the bridge section of "Waiting For The Night" is derived from a Tuvan throat singing recording performed by Dmitry Damba-Darzhaa, originally released on Melodii Tuvi - Throat Songs And Folk Tunes From Tuva, a 1969 collection of Tuvan music published in the Soviet Union.	Click to display/hide audio example
	Vocal elements	E-mu Systems - Emulator II factory library disk #12: Voices - SAMPLE 8	Confirmed	A vocal pad heard throughout "Waiting For The Night" utilises a vocal sample derived from Emulator II factory library disk #12 "Voices"	Click to display/hide audio example

Live performances

Main article: Available recordings of "Waiting For The Night"

Main article: List of dates where "Waiting For The Night" was played

Trivia

• 'Waiting For The Night' has been covered by Panic on the Titanic (1996), Children Within (1997), Rabbit in the Moon (1998), Lindum & Lindum (1999), Ultra Vision (1999), Lights of Euphoria (2000), Silent Promises (2001), Wickhead (2005), Último Misterio (2008), Lyynk feat. Xavier Bertrand (2009), and Ghost (2013).