The Night Chicago Died the U.S. at the height of its popularity because of contractual issues. "The Night Chicago Died" is about a shoot-out between the Chicago Police and gangsters tied to Al Capone. It was inspired by the real-life Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, although that involved Capone's men killing seven of Bugs Moran's gang members and had nothing to do with the police. The song's events supposedly take place "on the East Side of Chicago". Chicago has three commonly referred-to regions: the North Side, the West Side and the South Side. There is no East Side, as Lake Michigan is immediately east of
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre $2,000 a week plus bonuses. Karpis also claimed that Capone himself had told him while they were in Alcatraz together that Goetz had been the actual planner of the massacre. Despite Byron Bolton's statements, no action was taken by the FBI. All the men he named, with the exceptions of Burke and Maddox, were dead by 1935. Bank robber Harvey Bailey would later complain in his 1973 autobiography that he and Fred Burke had been drinking beer in Calumet City at the time of the massacre, and the resulting heat forced them to abandon their bank robbing ventures. Claude Maddox