Lyrics to
Night By Night

This version of Night By Night was released by Steely Dan in 1974.

Our Steely Dan Songs profile has Night By Night lyrics from 1974 and most if not all of the lyrics by Steely Dan that we have here at Decade Lyrics.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to Steely Dan or about the 1970s in general.

It’s a beggars life, said the Queen of Spain
But don’t tell it to a poor man
‘Cause he’s got to kill for every thrill
The best he can
Everywhere around me
I see jealousy and mayhem
Because no men have all their peace of mind
To carry them
Well I don’t really care
If it’s wrong or if it’s right
But until my ship comes in
I’ll live night by night

When the joker tried to tell me
I could cut it in this rube town
When he tried to hang that sign on me
I said Take it down
When the dawn patrol got to tell you twice
They’re gonna do it with a shotgun
Yes, I’m cashing in this ten-cent life
For another one

Well I ain’t got the heart
To lose another fight
So until my ship comes in
I’ll live night by night

Well I don’t really care
If it’s wrong or if it’s right
But until my ship comes in
I’ll live night by night

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Steely Dan has released many songs over the years besides Night By Night. Steely Dan released songs from 1972 to 2000 spanning across albums like Can't Buy A Thrill, Countdown To Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, The Royal Scam, Aja, Gaucho, and Two Against Nature. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Steely Dan.

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About Lyrics and Night By Night by Steely Dan

When you decide to study the lyrics to Night By Night, you're looking at the words, verses and background chorus from the 1974 song by Steely Dan. Some of the lyrics to Night By Night have clear meanings and some contain metaphorical references. Like most songs, only Steely Dan and their collaborators know the full story behind any of the their songs.

You can understand the lyrics to Night By Night if you take apart the structure of the words. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Night By Night" means the words set to the music of Night By Night, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Steely Dan. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Night By Night and the lyrics to Night By Night are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Steely Dan who came here looking just for the lyrics to Night By Night, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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