Rediscovery of Benny Mardones - Into the Night

This song deserves special mention, because it is one of those songs I never could really get the singer nor the name of the song. It is definitely the song that haunted me the longest, living in the slivers of my thought, hidden away like a delicious treasure I want to revisit. I first heard this song in an assorted album that I bought from a dingy little store tucked away in Chirag Ali lane. This store was discovered by Koni (a.k.a. Choudary) who specialises in such things. The shop was one of those imported goods kind of a shop which had a decent and a rather unusual collection of cassettes. Each cassette I bought from there introduced me to new songs, new groups.

So was this tape, which featured Nick Kamen's cover version of this song. Unfortunately the tape was bad, the recording barely audible, but this song caught my attention and I remember playing it loudly on my little car stereo which served as a music deck those days. The music deck was also bought by Koni and I, and was the first big purchase of mine with my own money, a scholarship of Rs. 1200 I had won for being part of the winning Under 15 Hyderabad team. Koni bargained a free Iron Maiden tape with the deck and that tape put me off Iron Maiden for the rest of my life.

Anyway, the tape soon got spoilt and I regretted not knowing how to get this song which went 'She's just sixteen years old...'. But the name Nick Kamen stuck in my head. Many years later Naresh played the original version, the Benny Mardones version of the song, and I jumped. 'Hey, that's Nick Kamen,' to which Naresh said that it was sung by someone else. When Naresh shared his entire collection of music with me a few years ago, this song featured but I could not access it.

And so it was, that a few days ago I tried different versions - 'She's just 16...'...'Into the night' and hit jackpot. I found Nick Kamen's version which i mailed to Naresh. He mailed me back a link on youtube to the Benny Mardones version - which is certainly far more soulful. Here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsdC5qNNke8&feature=related
Of course, this is to say that this song certainly reaches high into the list of my romantic songs - in the top 10. You will like it too.