About We've Got Tonight

"We've Got Tonite" is a song written by American rock music artist Bob Seger, from his album Stranger in Town (1978). The single record charted twice for Seger, and was developed from a prior song that he had written. Further versions charted in 1983 for Kenny Rogers as a duet with Sheena Easton, and again in 2002 for Ronan Keating. The song developed from an earlier Seger composition titled "This Old House" which featured the same chords as "We've Got Tonite" although the earlier song had a slightly different melody. Seger overhauled "This Old House" into "We've Got Tonite" the day after seeing the film The Sting (1973) which features a conversation between the Robert Redford character and a woman he's attracted to played by Dimitra Arliss who says: "I don't even know you': Redford's response: "You know me. It's two in the morning and I don't know nobody", caused an emotional response in Seger manifested in the overhauled song lyrics.

"We've Got Tonite" was not recorded until the 1976 sessions for Seger's album Night Moves and was held off that album as Seger felt it was not a thematic fit. It was one of five Stranger... tracks recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and Venetta Fields, Clydie King and Shirley Matthews provided the backing vocals. "We've Got Tonite" served as the album's third single, reaching No. 13 on the US pop charts in 1978. It also played in the background of Melissa Sue Anderson's television film Survival of Dana (1979), in a scene where Anderson's character was in Los Angeles visiting one of her new friends' homes and was in a room with co-star Robert Carradine's character 'Donny Davis', whom she was falling for. In the UK, the original version would chart twice, reaching No. 41 in 1979, and then reaching No. 22 as a 1995 re-release—as "We've Got Tonight"—to promote a Greatest Hits album: in 1982, a live version—titled "We've Got Tonite"—from the in-concert album Nine Tonight reached No. 60 in the UK. Since the death of his mother Charlotte Seger (née Zadow) (1913-1989), Seger has made a point of always including "We've Got Tonite" in his live setlist, as it was her favorite of Seger's compositions.