"Midnight Blue" is a song by American singer and songwriter Melissa Manchester, written by herself alongside Carole Bayer Sager and produced by Vini Poncia with an executive production by Richard Perry.
[1] In the United States, the single became her first top ten entry on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number six.
Bayer Sager played the demo for Perry at his Manhattan hotel suite, first telling him: "The girl I wrote the song with is singing here and she wants to record it... and I was hoping if you liked it maybe you'd produce it."
According to Bayer Sager, Perry himself played the completed track of "Midnight Blue" for Arista Records president Clive Davis [8] who greenlit Poncia producing Manchester's album Melissa from which "Midnight Blue" was issued as lead single in May 1975 (the single edit trimmed 29 seconds off the album track's outro).
Right after 'Midnight Blue', everything changed" [10] - "We traveled thousands of miles shaking hands and playing: when [the song] finally got from the east coast to the west coast it was so huge...I [will] never forget that first experience of playing the intro to 'Midnight Blue' [to have] people started cheering....That was the power of radio.
In its sixth week on the Billboard Hot 100, "Midnight Blue" entered the Top 40 at #40 on the chart dated 14 June 1975, with the track ranked at #2 on that week's Billboard Easy Listening chart: "Midnight Blue" would spend the weeks of 21–28 June at #1 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart - eventually being cited as the #1 Easy Listening hit of the year 1975[11] - while on the Hot 100 the track would ascend to a peak of #6 (8 August 1975).
In October 2020, a re-envisioned version of "Midnight Blue" was released in support of World Singing Day (3rd Sunday in October)[13] The official music video shows Manchester in a new performance of the song, with a backdrop of images of her stage performances of the song over the years.
The song has also been recorded by Shirley Bassey, Johnny Mathis, Arthur Prysock, Vanessa Williams and Viola Wills.