Perfect Songs: "Because The Night" (1978)

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, with Michael Stipe

Running across this collaboration by my two favorite rock stars? Priceless.

Long a staple of Bruce's live show, "Because the Night" didn't quite make it onto his fourth album, "Darkness on the Edge of Town." Instead, he gave it to Patti Smith, who altered the lyrics and released it as a single in 1978. Smith was a seminal influence on the young Stipe, who favored Smith's version of the lyric when he performed alongside Springsteen in 2004 when Bruce and R.E.M. were campaigning for Sen. Kerry. The song features one of Springsteen's most majestic bridges, and definitely his longest. Definitely a desert island video.