Bob Dylan / 2:25
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar
Charlie Daniels: guitar
Norman Blake: guitar
Kelton D. Herston: guitar (?)
Bob Wilson: piano
Charlie McCoy: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: February 13, 1969
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Charlie Bragg and Neil Wilburn
If more evidence was required to prove that Hank Williams influenced Bob Dylan, it would have been called “One More Night.” The call of Nashville! There were several Williams touches in this song: the bouncy rhythm that referred to classics like “Lovesick Blues” and “Hey, Good Lookin’” and simple, expressive poetry, such as “One more night, the stars are in sight / But tonight I’m as lonesome as can be / Oh, the moon is shinin’ bright / Lighting ev’rything in sight / But tonight no light will shine on me.” Rock critic Andy Gill: “The song is also notable as another example of Dylan’s changing attitude toward women. Although the reason for the breakdown of his relationship—the singer’s inability to be what his lover wants him to be—echoes that of earlier songs like ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe,’ he acknowledges here that’s it’s not just a lover he has lost, but his best pal.”24
Long forgotten was the rock of Highway 61 Revisited, the protest songs of The Times They Are A-Changin’, and the hallucinations of Blonde on Blonde. Dylan was in Nashville to play simple, straightforward music. With “One More Night,” the songwriter had no qualms about singing rather basic country, and he had surrounded himself with the ideal team to achieve this. His voice accomplishes the feat of reaching the high notes in the last verse. The mood is curiously light and detached in contrast to lyrics that suggest solitude and abandonment. Once again Charlie Daniels opens the piece with a small introduction on acoustic guitar, followed by Norman Blake, who performs a very good part on dobro, including a solo that really takes off. With Charlie McCoy on bass and Kenneth Buttrey on drums, the rhythm section provides the perfect support for the other musicians, who are backed up by the irreproachable Bob Wilson on piano. A song with no glitches or problems, it expresses the tranquility of the country life.
“One More Night” was the third and last song kept from the first session on February 13, 1969. To date, Dylan has sung it twice onstage: on June 6, 1990, at the O’Keefe (now Sony) Center for the Performing Arts in Toronto, and on September 29, 1995, at the Sunrise Musical Theater in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.