Nights in White Satin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Nights in White Satin" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Single by The Moody Blues | ||
| from the album Days of Future Passed | ||
| Released | 1967 | |
| Recorded | 1967 | |
| Length | 7:38 (album) 3:06 (single edit #1) 4:26 (single edit #2) |
|
| Label | Deram | |
| Chart positions | ||
|
||
| The Moody Blues singles chronology | ||
| "Go Now" 1965 |
"Nights in White Satin" 1967 |
"Tuesday Afternoon" 1967 |
"Nights in White Satin" is a 1967 song by The Moody Blues, first featured on the album Days of Future Passed.
It was not a popular title when first released. This was mainly due to its length, which at seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds was longer than the norm at that time. There are two edited versions of the song, both stripped of the orchestra and poetry from the LP verson. The first version, with the songwriter's credit shown as "Redwave", was a hastily sounding 3:06 edit of the main song with very noticeable chopped parts. For the second edited version (now credited to Justin Hayward), the main track was kept intact, ending at 4:26. Both versions were backed with a non-LP release, "Cities". The song was re-released in 1972 after the success of such longer-running dramatic songs as "Hey Jude" and "Layla", and it charted at #2 in the United States, earning a gold single for sales of a million copies. Its original release in the United Kingdom reached #19; in the wake of its US success, the song re-charted in the UK in the late 1972 and climbed ten positions higher, to #9. The song was re-released yet again in 1979, and charted for a third time in the UK, at #14.
Band member Justin Hayward wrote the song at age nineteen, and titled the song after a friend gave him a gift of satin bedsheets. The song itself was a tale of a yearning love from afar, which leads many aficionados to term it as a tale of unrequited love endured by Hayward. The London Festival Orchestra (not a professional orchestra at all, but composed of well-regarded studio musicians) provided the musical accompaniment heard throughout, and which reached its climax before and after the song itself and the spoken-word poem. The band and orchestra makes use of the Mellotron keyboard device, which would come to define the "Moody Blues sound".
The spoken-word poem, which is heard near the six-minute mark in the song, is called Late Lament. It was written by drummer Graeme Edge and was read by keyboardist Mike Pinder. On Days of Future Passed, the poem's last five lines bracket the album, appearing also at the end of track 1 ("The Day Begins"). While "Late Lament" has been commonly known as part of "Nights In White Satin" with no separate credit on the original LP, it was given its own listing on the 2-LP compilation This Is The Moody Blues in 1974 and again in 1987 (without its parent song) on another compilation, Prelude. Both compilations feature the track in a slightly different form than on Days Of Future Passed. Both spoken and instrumental tracks are given an echo effect. The orchestral ending is kept intact, but the gong that closes the track from the original LP is completely edited out.
While largely ignored on its first release, the song has since garnered much critical acclaim, ranking #36 in BBC Radio 2's "Sold on Song Top 100" list.
There is also a version in Spanish (Noches de Seda) and Italian (Notte di Luce - sung by Mario Frangoulis and Justin Hayward, 2002).
[edit] Cover versions
- Eric Burdon and War (The Black Man's Burdon album, 1970)
- Giorgio Moroder (Knights In White Satin album, 1976)
- The Dickies (Dawn of the Dickies album, 1979)
- Elkie Brooks (UK #32 Chart Hit 1982) (Pearls II album, 1982)
- David Lanz (Skyline Firedance album, 1992)
- Glenn Hughes (Music for the Divine album, 2006) (Used in the movie Stealth )
- Declan Galbraith on his album Thank You
- Il Divo (Notte Di Luce on their Siempre album, 2006)
- Deodato (Deodato 2 album, 1973)
- Sandra (Fading Shades album, 1995)
- Offer Nissim featuring Ivri Lider - Nights In White Satin (Offer Nissim Remix)
[edit] External links
| The Moody Blues |
|---|
| Justin Hayward | John Lodge | Graeme Edge Former members: Ray Thomas | Mike Pinder | Patrick Moraz | Denny Laine | Clint Warwick |
| Discography |
| Studio Albums: The Magnificent Moodies | Days of Future Passed | In Search of the Lost Chord | On the Threshold of a Dream | To Our Children's Children's Children | A Question of Balance | Every Good Boy Deserves Favour | Seventh Sojourn | Octave | Long Distance Voyager | The Present | The Other Side of Life | Sur La Mer | Keys of the Kingdom | Strange Times | December |
| Live: Caught Live + 5 | A Night at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra | Hall Of Fame: Live at the Royal Albert Hall | Lovely To See You |
| Compilations: This is The Moody Blues | Greatest Hits | Prelude | Time Traveller (Box Set) | An Introduction to The Moody Blues |
