Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues (1967): A Timeless Classic

"Nights in White Satin" was released on The Moody Blues' second album, Days of Future Passed, in November 1967 by Deram Records. With its fusion of orchestral and rock elements, it has been cited as one of the first examples of progressive rock.

A new video for an old rock classic! Many requests for this one through the years...what can I say about "Nights in White Satin" (besides I've always loved it)? I guess the thing that stands out most to me about it is that even though it's been overplayed to death, once it starts playing you listen till the end every time....it's just an immensely captivating and gorgeous song. A stone prog rock classic for the ages! I hope you enjoy my video effort for it. Thanks for watching!

From Wikipedia:
The album was recorded at a time when the Moody Blues were suffering financial difficulties and lack of critical and commercial success. Their parent label, Decca Records, planned to release a classical LP to showcase the stereo recording techniques of its new imprint, Deram, but instead brought in the group to create an original work combining pop with progressive orchestrations arranged and conducted by Peter Knight. They composed a suite of songs about the life of everyday man, with the group and orchestra mostly playing separately and mixed together. It was a moderate success upon release, but following steady radio airplay, particularly of the hit single "Nights in White Satin", it became a top ten US hit in 1972. It has since been listed among the most important albums of 1967 by Rolling Stone.

Keyboardist Mike Pinder had purchased a Mellotron, a tape replay keyboard, and written a song, "Dawn Is a Feeling" as a starting point for a concept piece about a day in the life of everyday man. Hayward wrote "Nights in White Satin" about the changes between one relationship and another, using bedsheets as a metaphor. When Pinder added a string line on the Mellotron to accompany Hayward's basic song framework, the group realized they had written something notable and a suitable ending for the song cycle.

Recording sessions for the album took place at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, between 9 May and 3 November 1967. The band worked with record producer Tony Clarke, engineer Derek Varnals, and conductor Peter Knight. The group recorded and mixed their sessions first, then passed the finished tapes over to Knight for arranging and recording the orchestral interludes.

The album's music features psychedelic rock ballads by Hayward, Pinder, Lodge, and Thomas and orchestral interludes by the London Festival Orchestra. The band and the orchestra only actually play together during the last part of "Nights In White Satin".

Music writers cite the album as an early example of progressive rock music. Bill Holdship of Yahoo! Music remarks that the band "created an entire genre here." David Fricke cites it as one of the essential albums of 1967 and finds it "closer to high-art pomp than psychedelia. But there is a sharp pop discretion to the writing and a trippy romanticism in the mirroring effect of the strings and Mike Pinder's Mellotron." Will Hermes cites the album as an essential progressive rock record and opines that its use of the Mellotron, a tape replay keyboard, made it a "signature" element of the genre. An influential work of the counterculture period, AllMusic editor Bruce Eder calls the album "one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era". By 2007, Rolling Stone, which had originally described Days of Future Passed as "an English rock group strangling itself in conceptual goo" included it in its list of the essential albums of 1967.

[Lyrics]
Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore

'Cause I love you
Yes, I love you
Oh, how I love you

Gazing at people
Some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through
They can't understand
Some try to tell me
Thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be
You will be in the end

And I love you
Yes, I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I've always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say anymore

Yes I love you
Yes, I love you
Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Yes I love you
Yes, I love you

Oh, how I love you
Oh, how I love you

Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bed sitter people look back and lament
Another days useless energy spent
Impassioned lovers wrestle as one
Lonely man cries for love and has none
New mother picks up and suckles her son
Senior citizens wish they were young
Cold hearted orb that rules the night
Removes the colors from our sight
Red is gray and yellow white
But we decide which is right
And which is an illusion

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