I Love the Night

A close listen reveals that this song is about a man who is bitten by a female vampire and turned into one: "Her kiss that night told me it was over" (his life) "One look in the mirror told me so" (he couldn't see his reflection, a sure sign that he's a vampire) In a Songfacts interview with Buck Dharma of Blue Öyster Cult, he explained: "That's one of the several songs about vampires that we've written over the years. The idea is, Let's paint vampires in an attractive and romantic light, which I think is one of the aspects of the vampire legend that is attractive."

During this period, the members of Blue Öyster Cult would write songs at home and bring them in for the band to work on, which provided a lot of variety in their songs. This one was written by their guitarist Donald Roeser, who is also known as Buck Dharma. Keyboard player Allen Lanier told the NME in 1978: "I find Donald's supernatural songs more compelling. He has this way of writing so that in 'I Love The Night' the occult angle is secondary to the love aspect. An archetypal, bizarre situation becomes universal. Recently we were in San Bernardino, California and we heard 'Riders On The Storm' followed by 'I Love The Night' on the radio. It was a real thrill to see how they measured up to each other. Both had comparable qualities."

The first three Blue Öyster Cult albums didn't contain any hits but earned the band a, er, cult following that appreciated their weighty sound and mysterious lyrics. Their fourth album, Agents Of Fortune, brought them into the open with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," which got them on the charts for the first time and became a rock classic. The band came under pressure from their label and from themselves to find another hit, which affected the songwriting for their fifth album, Spectres. "I Love The Night" was crafted for radio and released as the first single, and it went nowhere. Another track on the album, "Godzilla," proved more enduring.