The Dark End of the Street

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"The Dark End of the Street" is a 1967 soul song written by Dan Penn and Chips Moman and first performed by James Carr. The song became the Carr's most popular, reaching number 10 on Billboard Magazine's Black Singles Chart, and crossing over to number 77 on the Pop chart.

Written by Penn, a professional songwriter and producer, and Moman, a session guitarist at Phil Spector's Gold Star Studio, the song is the lament from an adulterer to his illicit lover, told from the adulterer's point of view. They continue their sin, "hiding in shadows where [they] don't belong" because their "love keeps coming on strong." At the climax of the song, the narrator fears "they're gonna find us some day."

In the summer of 1966, while a DJ convention was being held in Memphis, Tennessee, the song was written in about thirty minutes. Penn and Moman were cheating while playing cards with Florida DJ Don Schroeder. They wrote the song while on a break. “We were always wanting to to come up with the best cheatin’ song. Ever,” Penn said. The duo went to the hotel room of Quinton Claunch, founder of Hi Records, to write. Claunch told them, "boys, you can use my room on one condition, which is that you give me that song for James Carr. They said I had a deal, and they kept there word.”

The song has been covered by many artists, including Elvis Costello, Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Percy Sledge, Linda Thompson, Frank Black and the Flying Burrito Brothers.

Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton recorded the song in 1968 as a male/female duet on their album, Just the Two of Us.

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