“Night Time Girl”
by The Seeds
1968 song
"Night Time Girl" is a tribute to a mysterious vixen who, Sky Saxon sings, lives on his street and visits him regularly. As with most songs on the Raw & Alive album, Sky’s voice is ravaged and (yes) raw, his passion overwhelmed yet again.
The story of the sessions surrounding this song are a bit convoluted. The Seeds abandoned a February 20, 1968 attempt at recording a fake live album in the studio. On this evening, "Night Time Girl" was not among the songs attempted.) The band reconvened on April 2 for another session, during which three songs were done.
The final work of the evening was this new song, "Night Time Girl", which required 18 takes. Take 18 was the only recording from this session to be released. It had fake crowd noises added, and can be found on Raw & Alive. This version, with crowd noise, was released in Turkey with a very rare picture sleeve. It was paired with "Gypsy Plays His Drums".
Turkey-only picture sleeve of "Night Time Girl" single release
The same recording of "Night Time Girl" without the crowd noises was finally released in 2014. Twice, in fact: on the 2-CD expanded Raw & Alive from Big Beat and on a 7″ single, with picture sleeve, from Norton.
The other version: “Day Time Girl”
Sky Saxon covered "Night Time Girl" as "Day Time Girl" with his band Lighter on the 2005 album Transparency. The lyrics are a little different though they follow the same general theme of a girl who lives on Sky’s street and whose beauty stops traffic. The fuzzy, on-the-beat bleat of the original has been replaced by a pulsing electronic beep slightly out of time. The subtly strange effect makes "Day Time Girl" quite a psychedelic listen.
