While Allen Toussaint was putting the finishing touches on a concept album in 1975, he made one last-minute addition that would change everything. “Southern Nights” was a more personal song for Toussaint, his account of childhood memories visiting family in the backwoods of Louisiana.
Southern nights
Have you ever felt a southern night?
Free as a breeze
Not to mention the trees
Whistling tunes that you know and love so
Southern skies
Just as good even when you closed your eyes
I apologize
Close anyone who can truly say
That he has found a better way
Feel so good
Feel so good, it’s frightenin’
Wish I could
Stop this world from fighting
“While I was finishing the album, Van Dyke Parks visited me in the studio,” recalled Toussaint in 2014 on writing “Southern Nights” at the very end of recording. “He said, ‘Well, consider that you were going to die in two weeks. If you knew that, what would you think you would like to have done?’ And after he said that, I wrote ‘Southern Nights’ as soon as he left.”
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“That song was a total inspiration.”
Once prompted, it took around two hours for Toussaint to write the more jazz and ambient piece. “It all came at once, because I lived that story,” he said. “It was one of those things that writers would like to happen all the time. We would like to write from total sheer spiritual inspiration, but many times we just write from our tools and our bible.”
He added, “That song was a total inspiration. It felt like a soft, clear white flower settled above my head and caressed me. I really felt highly, highly inspired and very spiritual doing that song. It’s the only one I felt that much about. Some others have been inspired highly, but not as high as that one.”
That song was a total inspiration. It felt like a soft, clear white flower settled above my head and caressed me.
Allen Toussaint
When it was completed, Toussaint immediately went into the studio to record it on a Fender Rhodes piano, while soul singer and producer Tony Owens was “beating on an ashtray,” he recalled. “That little tinkling sound, it was just me on the instrument and singing, and Tony Owens playing on an ashtray,” said Toussaint.
“No one remarked on it, because it didn’t sound much like a commercial song, and it wasn’t,” he added. “I didn’t write it to be a song like all the others on there. I just wanted to share that story with this album. It wasn’t supposed to be a commercial song, and I didn’t think it would sound like one to anyone else. But I did feel quite complete after I wrote “Southern Nights.” I felt totally finished with the album. But that didn’t mean I was ready to die.”
Despite becoming one of his signature songs, once released, Toussaint’s “Southern Nights” never charted until Jimmy Webb suggested Glen Campbell give it a listen.
Glen Campbell Takes “Southern Nights” to No. 1
Shortly after its release, Campbell heard the song and connected to Toussaint’s story, which reminded him of his upbringing, growing up on a farm in Billstown, Arkansas.
“My dad told me when I was a kid, ‘You’re having the best time of your life, and you don’t even know it,’” said Campbell of the song. “Sure enough, he was right. Now I really feel the need to go back home, float down the Missouri River, and fish for bass and crappies. It’s really peaceful, and remote from things like telephones. My head is still there.”
Campbell recorded it for his 1977 album, which he also called Southern Nights, and features a cover of the Beach Boys’ 1966 classic “God Only Knows” and a song Neil Diamond wrote for the country singer, “Sunflower.”
Released as the lead single, Campbell’s rendition of “Southern Nights” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Country charts. It also spent four weeks at the top of the Adult Contemporary chart and picked up a CMA nomination for Song of the Year. “Southern Nights” was Campbell’s fifth and final Country chart topper.
Written by Allen Toussaint
Toussaint said, like many of his other songs, it took some time before people realized that he wrote “Southern Nights,” not Campbell.
“It took people quite a while to realize I’d written it,” Toussaint said. “I wasn’t out there performing, so I guess some people thought that probably Glen Campbell had written it, which I don’t mind. It was just like all the rest of the songs I’ve written in my life. People didn’t know I wrote ‘Mother-In-Law’ or ‘Java,’ or ‘Working in the Coal Mine’ either.”
Still, Toussaint said he “loved” Campbell’s version, and the two met many times in the years that followed and became friends. “I love Glen’s version,” said Toussaint. “I had never thought of it as an uptempo and mainstream song before. … It was so good to hear it like that, because I just hadn’t imagined that someone would listen closely enough to it to want to cover such a thing. I already liked Glen Campbell because of all those marvelous songs he’d done, so to include this as one of the most important ones in his life was just a joy.”
He continued, “I was just so surprised that ‘Southern Nights’ would become a mainstream hit. In those days, when someone would hear my version, they’d hear some words and maybe not hear some others, and they’d be waiting for the next thing to happen. But now, after I tell the story, I think everyone hears it in a better light and understands the significance of it.”
Photo: Chuck Fishman/Getty Images
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