THE MOODY BLUES - "Nights in White Satin"

The Moody Blues
"Nights in White Satin"
Single / B-sides "Cities"
Released: 10 November 1967  
Album: Days of Future Passed (Released: November 1967)
Writer: Justin Hayward
Label: Deram Records

"Nights in White Satin" is a 1967 single by The Moody Blues, written by Justin Hayward (who joined the band the previous year after Denny Laine left the group) and first featured on the album Days of Future Passed.

 

  The Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin" (Single)

  The Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin" 

(original music video, 1967)

Band member Justin Hayward wrote the song at age 19 in Swindon, and titled the song after a girlfriend 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 provided the orchestral accompaniment for the introduction, the final rendition of the chorus, and the "final lament" section, all of this in the original album version. The "orchestral" sounds in the main body of the song were actually produced by Mike Pinder's Mellotron keyboard device, which would come to define the "Moody Blues sound".

The spoken-word poem heard near the six-minute mark of the album version of the song is called "Late Lament". Drummer Graeme Edge wrote the verses, which were read by keyboardist Mike Pinder. On Days of Future Passed, the poem's last five lines bracket the album and also appear at the end of track 1 ("The Day Begins"). While it has been commonly known as part of "Nights in White Satin" with no separate credit on the original LP, "Late Lament" was given its own listing on the two-LP compilation This is the Moody Blues in 1974 and again in 1987 (without its parent song) on another compilation, Prelude.

Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin" (French TV 1968)

 

Moody Blues - "Night in White Satin"
(Full version - Official) 

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The Moody Blues - "Nights In White Satin"

(album Days of Future Passed)  

The Moody Blues 1967

Line-up / Musicians: 

Justin Hayward - lead vocal, acoustic guitar
John Lodge - backing vocal, bass guitar
Mike Pinder - backing vocal, mellotron, narration (on "Late Lament"), gong
Ray Thomas - backing vocal, flute, percussion
Graeme Edge - backing vocal, drums, percussion
With:
Peter Knight and the London Festival Orchestra - orchestral arrangements

LInk / Review:
Moody Blues Today: "Nights In White Satin" and Five Decades of The Moody Blues 
Official Website: www.moodybluestoday.com  
Wikipedia:  Nights in White Satin (Song)  
Songfacts: Nights in White Satin by The Moody Blues