Talk:The Night Chicago Died

Capone didn't live in "East Side" of Chicago
According to the page for East Side, Chicago, the area runs from 95th Street on the North to 126th Street. It's also much farther east than Prairie Avenue. Capone's first house in Chicago was on Prairie Avenue between 72nd and 73rd. While it can be argued that there is legitimately an "East Side of Chicago," it doesn't really seem relevant to the context of the story told in the song. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.32.248.216 (talk) 05:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

East Side and East Chicago
I always thought Chicago's "East Side" was more commonly known as "Lake Michigan." Malbuff (talk) 22:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what they said on the Wendella Boat Tour I was on. They described the boundaries for the West-, North-, and South Sides, and said, "...and we're floating in the East Side."--Thbusch (talk) 13:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

East Side is the name of a community in SE Cook County (the same county Chicago is in). There is no East Chicago in Illinois but there is one in Indiana. There used to be a small town called East Chicago Heights in Illinois, but now it's called Ford Heights. In any case, East Side is 12 miles away from Capone's hotel. Rissa, copy editor (talk) 00:24, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Needs revision
This sentence is poorly written (and somewhat redundant in light of a similar sentence in the next paragraph): "Although it references the notorious Chicago mobster Al Capone and his gang by name, the only massive shoot out occurred and is known as The Saint Valentines Day Massacre during Capone's reign as the head of the city's organized crime syndicate." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.246.69.110 (talk) 19:50, 15 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I rewrote the first paragraph of that section to make it easier to read. I thought it was more important to say what the song is actually about (Capone v. police) and then mention that it might have been based on the St Valentine's Day Massacre.

The Lyrics specify it was SUMMER, so it was not based on the St Valentine's Day Massacre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:100E:B04C:751A:372B:E959:607:B350 (talk) 21:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

In Defence of the Songwriters
While it is unfortunate that much of the song's action should be based in an entirely nonexistent quarter of the city under scrutiny; to be fair to the lyricists, in the UK in the 1970s it was no easy matter to research the internal geography of even a prominent conurbation on the other side of the world. There was no Internet, no instantaneous access to facts and figures which has done so much to defuse that explosive artform, the pub argument.

Research, in those days, meant legwork, and reference libraries, and heartache. All of which was especially difficult from the back of a tour bus; or, should I say, tour van. Nuttyskin (talk) 13:28, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Not just the bad geography. The whole premise of a shootout big enough to leave "100 cops" dead, nothing nearly like that ever happened in Chicago. Inkan1969 (talk) 20:01, 5 August 2019 (UTC)