The WSJ has a cool backstory on Bob Seger’s song “Night Moves”, with extended quotes from Seger and others involved in the song’s performance and production:
Mr. Seger: Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee” knocked me out. It’s a narration, very descriptive, and I knew those were the kinds of songs I wanted to write. I took that as my template. The original germ for “Night Moves” was seeing “American Graffiti” [released in 1973]. That was us. Cruising at night, going through drive-ins, and the mental process when your hormones are raging. I wrote the song when I was almost 30, and I was talking about when I was 17…
I had taken some time off the road to write. I had some money from “Live Bullet” so I bought a nice house. Nothing spectacular, but it had a huge basement so the band could play. I wrote my brains out. The one that got me stuck was “Night Moves.” It took me six months to write. I had the ending [“I woke last night to the sound of thunder, how far off I sat and wondered”] but I didn’t know how to get there.
What broke me free was listening to Bruce Springsteen’s album “Born to Run.” On the last song, “Jungleland,” he did the bridge and slowed down the last verse, but it’s not the same chords as the first. Almost like a double bridge. I said, “Wow, OK, that’ll be my structure.”
