In the Still of the Night

Song of the Day 07/27/2022

In the Still of the Night by The Five Satins

After watching Scorsese’s The Irishman in the fall of 2019, months before the onset of the Pandemic, before the world would begin to change, I became fully convinced that time itself was an illusory, subjective concept. For 210 minutes, I was transfixed, eyes glued to the screen, unable to look away or get up to use the bathroom. Perversely, I would watch the movie seven more times over a period of three months. (For anyone rolling their eyes—the film is much less a run-of-the-mill mob story than it is a long meditation on death and regret. Among Scorsese’s oeuvre, it is as broodingly existential as it comes, and as a work of art, it’s far superior to Goodfellas). 

In The Still of the Night is used generously throughout The Irishman; in the opening credits, the closing credits, and several montage sequences. Scorsese said in an interview that this song was all he could think of when he read Steven Zaillian’s screenplay, the way it perfectly encapsulated the romantic nature of literal stillness, all the misery, sorrow, and quiet peace that death entails. 

In the Winter of 1956, Fred Parris, the leader of The Five Satins, recorded the song in New Haven, Connecticut in the basement of a Catholic elementary school. There were only four Satins at the original recording session: Fred Parris, Al Denby, Eddie Martin, and Jim Freeman. The fifth member, Nat Mosley, missed the bus on the way to the recording and was forever left out of the master.

Parris wrote In the Still of the Night when he was 19 years old on a bus from Connecticut to Philadelphia, on a slow-moving journey to army boot camp. Although the song was only a moderate hit at the time it debuted, it would grow, slowly, to become an oldies classic, played repeatedly on nostalgia-driven radio stations like WCBC-FM. As part of the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing, it sold over 10 million copies between 1987 and 1988.

After the British Invasion made doo-wop unfashionable, Parris began working at a gun-making plant in Connecticut while delivering food at Southern Connecticut State University on the side. Beginning in the 70s, he began touring again, revitalizing The Five Satins with a constantly shifting array of members.

Parris died recently, on January 13th, 2022. He’s survived by three children and eight grandchildren. Jim Freeman now lives in Iowa and owns a pest control company. I couldn’t find what happened to Eddie Martin, Al Denby, and the tragically tardy Nat Mosley. 

Every good song stems from a state of melancholic longing, often for a woman, man, or narcotic. Marla is the ostensible name of the woman In the Still of the Night is based on. After the song released and Parris returned home from the army, Marla was flattered by the devotion but told him she couldn’t meet up. She was going to visit her mother in California and would see him when she was back. Though the song is still a hit, the two never saw each other again.