747 (STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT) BY SAXON

THE GREAT NORTHEAST Blackout took place on November 9, 1965. Due to disastrous technical problems, electricity supplies to thousands of people in southern Ontario, Canada, and across eight north-eastern American states, were abruptly cut. Alarmingly, this included power supplies to airport runway lights, forcing countless planes to be re-routed elsewhere. The blackout lasted for 13 hours: seemingly against the odds, the crime rate reportedly dropped as a result. Less surprisingly, birth rates in the areas affected unexpectedly spiked nine months later…

Fast-forward to 1979: Saxon frontman Biff Byford is watching a BBC documentary about the blackout, presented by noted science historian James Burke, and suddenly has a really cool idea for a song. Within a matter of days, Saxon had written 747 (Strangers In The Night), which would soon become one of the band’s biggest hits and greatest anthems.

“I was watching this documentary, you know?” Biff recalls. “I’d heard another song with a lyric about ‘riding on a 747’ and that was stuck in my head, and it all seemed to come together naturally. I came up with the melody for the chorus first. I think I wrote that arpeggio in the chorus with the words ‘Strangers in the night’ in there. I probably got the idea from the [1966] Frank Sinatra song – the syllables were the same. I’m a big Sinatra fan. I like his phrasing. So when that riff came along, it all fitted together really nicely.”