Nights in White Satin


"Nights in White Satin" is a song by the Moody Blues, written and composed by Justin Hayward. It was first featured as the segment "The Night" on the album Days of Future Passed. When first released as a single in 1967, it reached number 19 on the UK Singles Chart and number 103 in the United States in 1968. It was the first significant chart entry by the band since "Go Now" and its recent lineup change, in which Denny Laine and Clint Warwick had resigned and both Hayward and John Lodge had joined.
When reissued in 1972, in the United States the single hit number two – for two weeks – on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit number one on the Cash Box Top 100. It earned a gold certification for sales of over a million US copies. It also hit number one in Canada. After two weeks at #2, it was replaced by "I'd Love You to Want Me" by Lobo. It reached its highest UK position this year at number 9. Although the song did not enter the official New Zealand chart, it reached #5 on the New Zealand Listeners chart compiled from the readers' votes in 1973.
The song enjoyed a recurring chart presence in the following decades. It charted again in the UK and Ireland in 1979 reaching #14 and #8, respectively. The song charted again in 2010, reaching number 51 in the British Official Singles Charts. It has also been covered by numerous other artists, most notably Giorgio Moroder, Elkie Brooks, and Sandra.

Production

Band member Justin Hayward wrote and composed 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. Hayward said of the song, "It was just another song I was writing and I thought it was very powerful. It was a very personal song and every note, every word in it means something to me and I found that a lot of other people have felt that very same way about it."
The London Festival Orchestra provided the orchestral accompaniment for the introduction, the final rendition of the chorus, and the "final lament" section, all of which were 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 's signature sound".
The song is written in the key of E minor and features the Neapolitan chord.

Single releases

The two single versions of the song were both stripped of the orchestral and "Late Lament" poetry sections of the LP version. The first edited version, with the songwriter's credit shown as "Redwave", was a hasty-sounding 3:06 version of the LP recording with very noticeable chopped parts. However, many versions of the single are listed on the labels at 3:06, but in fact are closer to the later version of 4:26.
Some versions, instead of ending cold as most do, segue briefly into the symphonic second half and, in fact, run for 4:33. For the second edited version, the early parts of the song were kept intact, ending early at 4:26. Most single versions were backed with a non-LP B-side, "Cities".
Although it only had limited commercial success on its first release, the song has since garnered much critical acclaim, ranking number 36 in BBC Radio 2's "Sold on Song Top 100" list.

"Late Lament"

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 recited 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.
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 on another compilation, Prelude. Both compilations feature the track in a slightly different form than on Days of Future Passed, giving both spoken and instrumental tracks an echo effect. The orchestral ending is kept intact, but mastering engineers edited out the gong that closes the track on the original LP.
From 1992 through the early 2000s, the Moody Blues toured with shows backed by live orchestras. When with orchestral accompaniment, they often took the opportunity to include "Late Lament" in the performance of "Nights in White Satin". On these occasions, Edge recited it himself, since Pinder was no longer in the band at that time.

Personnel

;Additional personnel

Weekly charts

Chart Peak
position
Australia 8
Canada 1
scope="row" -
South Africa 20
UK 9
US Hot 100 2
US Adult Contemporary 37
US Top 100 1

Chart Peak
position

Year-end charts

Certifications

Sandra version

A cover version of "Nights in White Satin" was released by the German singer Sandra on her sixth studio album Fading Shades. Her version was produced by Michael Cretu.
The song was released as the lead single off Fading Shades in the spring of 1995 and failed to match the success of Sandra's previous singles. The song only reached #86 in Germany, becoming her least successful lead single there to date, and #34 in New Zealand, where it remains her only charting single. It fared much better in Israel and Finland, and was also a top 10 airplay hit in Poland.
The music video, directed by Angel Hart, showed only close-ups of Sandra's face as she was pregnant at the time. A still from the video was later used on the Fading Shades album cover. The music video was released on Sandra's 2003 DVD The Complete History.

Formats and track listings

  1. "Nights in White Satin" — 3:35
  2. "Nights in White Satin" — 6:05
  3. "Nights in White Satin" — 5:29
  4. "Nights in White Satin" — 6:09
  5. "Nights in White Satin" — 4:02

Other cover versions

The work was reinterpreted as the focus of, a dark ride at the Hard Rock Park theme park in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, U.S.A. The attraction, which included 3D-black light and fiber-optic lighting effects and purpose-made films, was developed by Sally Corporation and Jon Binkowski of Hard Rock Park. Riders entered through a bead curtain and were provided with 3D glasses. The attraction operated as "The Trip" for the single 2008 season the park operated as Hard Rock Park, but was rethemed as "Monstars of Rock" with the sale and retitling of the park as Freestyle Music Park; "park officials said the experience will be similar but the presentation will be changed." Freestyle Music Park would cease operations after its only season as such in 2009.
Nights in White Satin was the title of a 1987 film directed by Michael Barnard, and starring Kip Gilman and Priscilla Harris. The Moody Blues recording of the song was featured prominently in the soundtrack, particularly during a rooftop dance sequence.