Bob Seger’s piano-based ballad tells a story of two lonely people who aren’t meant to be but will deal for one night. Seger penned the song after watching a movie titled, The Sting, starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
He saw a scene in the film where Redford puts the moves on a waitress, who says, “I don’t even know you.” Redford replies: “You know me. I’m the same as you. It’s two in the morning and I don’t know nobody.”
“That just hit me real hard,” Seger told during his 1994 interview with the Detroit Free Press. “The next day I wrote ‘We’ve Got Tonight,’ this song about two people who say ‘I’m tired. It’s late at night. I know you don’t really dig me, and I don’t really dig you, but this is all we’ve got, so let’s do it.’ The sexual revolution was still going strong then.”
Seger recorded the song with his Silver Bullet Band at the time featuring guitarist Drew Abbott, drummer David Teegarden, keyboardist Robyn Robbins, bass guitarist Chris Campbell, and saxophone player Alto Reed. The track peaked at No. 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and charted twice in the UK, first peaking at No. 41, and later on to No. 22 when it was re-released in 1995.
Keep going and listen to the song below: