"Isn't It Midnight" is a song by Fleetwood Mac, taken from their 1987 album Tango in the Night. The song was co-written and sung by Christine McVie, with contributions from Lindsey Buckingham and her then-husband Eddie Quintela. It was the sixth and final single to be released from the album in 1988. The cover of the single features the portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière. The song's harmonic structure is in aeolian mode and follows a descending I-VII sequence.
Release
In the United Kingdom, "Isn't It Midnight" was released as the follow-up to "Everywhere" and it charted at its peak position of number 60 on 18 June 1988. It performed better in Ireland, where it reached the top 30, peaking at number 23. The song was also released as a single in the United States in both its original album cut and as a live performance culled from the Tango in the Night concert filmed at Cow Palace. The former version reached number 14 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. This was the second official Fleetwood Mac song to be released on the 3-inch CD single format as well being issued on 7" and 12" vinyl. All formats contained the Tango in the Night track "Mystified", and the CD and 12-inch included the bonus tracks "Say You Love Me" and "Gypsy". The song was featured consistently throughout Fleetwood Mac's Tango in the Night and Behind the Maskconcert tours, though it was not played after 1990 until 2015 when it was played at selected Fleetwood Mac concerts.
Alternate versions
There are two alternate mixes of the song, one featured on the 1992 four-disc retrospective 25 Years – The Chain, and one on the Tango in the Night deluxe set released in 2017. Both versions have a sparser synth-driven arrangement with a lack of select electric guitar and backing vocal passages from Lindsey Buckingham. The mix featured on 25 Years – The Chain is also included on the 1992 CD single "Love Shines".
Reception
In a retrospective review, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called it an example of McVie's "bullet-proof" song-writing, a "confection of booming drums, precise, tinkly synth and wailing guitar solos that sounds as if it’s just waiting to appear in the background of a film starring Ally Sheedy." David Bowling of Blogcritics Magazine also grouped it as one of Christine McVie's strongest songs, noting that McVie delivers an atypical vocal in a song "about as hard as this incarnation of Fleetwood Mac gets". Upon reflection, Stevie Nicks considers the track, among Buckingham's own songs on the album, as representative of his best contributions to any Fleetwood Mac album.
