Prom Night

"Prom Night"
Single by The Midnight
from the album Monsters
Released	June 24, 2020 (2020-06-24)
Length	5:02
Label	Counter Records
Songwriter(s)	Tim McEwan Tyler Lyle
Producer(s)	Tim McEwan
Monsters track listing
Monsters "1991 (intro)" "America Online" "Dance With Somebody" "Seventeen" "Dream Away" "The Search for Ecco" "Prom Night" "Fire In The Sky" "Monsters" "Helvetica" "Brooklyn" "Deep Blue" "Night Skies" "City Dreams (interlude)" "Last Train"
The Midnight singles chronology
Dance With Somebody (2020) Prom Night (2020) Neon Medusa (2021)

Prom Night is a song by The Midnight. It is the fourth and final single and seventh track from their album Monsters. The single was released on June 24, 2020.

The song was written by band members Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle and produced by McEwan. The guitar on Prom Night was performed by Izzy Fontaine. It has a running time of five minutes and two seconds and is in the key of C major.

Prom Night promotional poster

On Twitter, Lyle commented on the lyrics of Prom Night:

Even writing it, the line “pretty girl’s hand” struck me as too conventional and not universal enough BUT. that was my own prom experience. 11th grade. Allyson in a pink dress with pink gloves. We started the night friends but I held that pink gloved hand- yes I did.

During an interview with Magnetic Magazine, the band further elaborated on the song:

Tim: As a Scandinavian, this is a strictly American thing and I was inspired by the movies I watched as a kid that all depicted prom as this coming of age thing that everything led up to. I wanted the track to feel like it could play at the end credits of a film like The Breakfast Club.

Tyler:

Senior Prom 2004

She was a cheerleader. I was a nerd with a lisp on the debate team who had never been kissed. Against all odds, when I asked her to go to prom, she said yes.

The afternoon of the dance, we were walking, side by side in the early evening light, talking about nothing in particular. We’d become better friends in the weeks leading up to prom. She wore a pink silk dress with long pink gloves that went almost to her elbows. Suddenly I felt something new. She looked at me, and I noticed her looking. Her eyes were fixed. She had a curious smile. I noticed our hands were almost touching. In that moment, I felt abject terror; like the world was opening up to swallow me whole, like I was about to jump off of a cliff into nothing. I saw the window closing on the moment, took a big breath, and against all odds, moved my fingers towards hers, she moved hers towards mine. All of a sudden, there we were, in a miracle of a moment, suspended in bliss. She became my first girlfriend.

And yet, time takes no prisoners.

David Foster Wallace says that every love story is a ghost story too. If I can forget how that relationship ended, and forget the string of love and loss over the next decade; if I can trim the footage just right, the memory still plays like a love story, forever in bloom, suspended, impossibly holding that pink gloved hand. And, if I really focus, I can balance myself in that moment, standing between two worlds, with that interior voice imploring me, “hey. idiot. hold her hand.” Some ghost stories are love stories too.

Prom Playlister

Main article: Prom Playlister

To promote the release of Prom Night, The Midnight released a tool on their website, the Prom Playlister, where one can enter their name and the month/year they went to prom. After submitting this info, the tool will create a personalized Spotify playlist with custom artwork featuring the person's name and songs that were popular at the time of the date entered. The playlist will also include the singles that were released from Monsters.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle.

Prom Night

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Prom Night"	5:02
2.	"Dance With Somebody"	4:17
3.	"Deep Blue"	3:57
4.	"America Online"	5:49
Total length:		19:05

Lyrics

There’s an open road
And now an open door
And a pretty girl’s hand
Beside yours

Do you know what to do
As she looks at you
Can leap from the ledge
And bridge the two halves of the world

Hold her hand
We’ll never pass this way again
Hold her hand
Forever or a slow dance
A breath as deep as you make
There’s a chance if you take it
And a heart that you break is still a heart
Hold her hand

There’s an open floor
As the chorus soars
And a pretty girl’s hand
Beside yours

Who knows what you’ll find
But the threshold shines
Can you leap from the ledge and bridge the two halves of the world

Hold her hand
We’ll never pass this way again
Hold her hand
Forever or a slow dance
A breath as deep as you make
There’s a chance if you take it
And a heart that you break is still a heart
Hold her hand

Prom night turns to daylight rediscovered
Friends become lovers under covers

Hold her hand
We’ll never pass this way again
Hold her hand
Forever or a slow dance
A breath as deep as you make
There’s a chance if you take it
And a heart that you break is still a heart
Hold her hand

Lyrics source

Official versions

Prom Night

from Monsters

Prom Night (Instrumental)

from Monsters (The Instrumentals)

References

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