About The Song
“I Drove All Night” is a song written and composed by American songwriters Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly and originally intended for Roy Orbison. Orbison recorded the song in 1987, the year before his death, but his version was not released until 1992.
Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote this. They have written many hit songs, including “Like A Virgin,” “Eternal Flame” and “True Colors.” Many of their songs start with a lyric or title Steinberg comes up with. He was living in the Coachella Valley in California and did a lot of driving back and forth between Los Angeles and the desert. He came up with the title on one of those drives.
In a Songfacts interview with Billy Steinberg, he told the story: “Tom and I were huge Roy Orbison fans. Tom grew up in Indiana and I grew up in Palm Springs, California and we really are as different as night and day as people, but the one thing that we have always shared in common is that we always liked the same music when we were kids. We both loved the Everly Brothers, Laura Nyro and Roy Orbison. We had, like most songwriters do, certain artists who inspired us and would inspire our songwriting, and one of those was Roy Orbison.
When we wrote the song ‘I Drove All Night,’ we didn’t entertain any fantasy about Roy ever recording this song. We just set out to write a song sort of in the style of Roy Orbison. In fact, what I would refer to as the B section of that song, the British would call it a pre-chorus, when it goes, ‘Taste your sweet kisses your arms open wide,’ that part that lifts into the chorus, it has a definite similarity to the Roy Orbison song ‘Running Scared.’ We had great fun writing that song because it felt like it authentically captured the spirit of the drama that Roy Orbison would inject into the great songs that he wrote, songs like ‘Running Scared’, ‘Crying’ or ‘In Dreams.'”
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Lyrics
I had to escape, the city was sticky and cruel
Maybe I should have called you first
But I was dying to get to you
I was dreaming while I drove
The long straight road ahead, uh-huh, yeah
Could taste your sweet kisses, your arms open wide
This fever for you was just burning me up inside
I drove all night to get to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night, crept in your room
Woke you from your sleep to make love to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night
What in this world keeps us from falling apart?
No matter where I go
I hear the beating of our one heart
I think about you when the night is cold and dark, uh-huh, yeah
No one can move me the way that you do
Nothing erases this feeling between me and you, oh
I drove all night to get to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night, crept in your room
Woke you from your sleep to make love to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night
Could taste your sweet kisses, your arms open wide
This fever for you is just burning me up inside
I drove all night to get to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night, crept in your room
Is that all right?
I drove all night
I drove all night to get to you
Is that all right?
I drove all night