"Nights in White Satin" is a 1967 single by the Moody Blues, written and composed by Justin Hayward and first featured as the segment "The Night" on the album Days of Future Passed. When first released in 1967, the song reached number 19 on the UK Singles Chart and number 103 in the United States in 1967. It was the first significant chart entry by the band since "Go Now" and its recent lineup change, in which Denny Laine had resigned and both Hayward and John Lodge had joined.
Upon its 1972 reissue, the single hit number two - for two weeks - on the Billboard Hot 100 (behind "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash) and hit number one on the Cash Box Top 100 in the United States. It earned a gold certification for sales of over a million U.S. copies. It also hit number one in Canada. In the wake of its American success, the song recharted in the U.K. in late 1972 and climbed to number nine. The song was released yet again in 1979, and charted for a third time in the U.K. - peaking at number 14.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
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 Blues sound".
The song is written in the key of E minor and features the Neapolitan chord (F).
Night In The White Satin Video
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 ("Late Lament") and, in fact, run for 4:33 (but are also listed on the label as 3:06). For the second edited version (with the song's writing credited to Hayward), 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 ("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. 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 recording engineers have completely edited out the gong (struck by Mike Pinder) 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 not in the band by then.
![The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin [Lyrics] HD - YouTube](https://i0.wp.com/imagos.club/wp-contents/uploads/2013/12/KQ1LLu.jpg "The Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin [Lyrics] HD - YouTube")
In the late 1990s, the UK magazine Record Collector printed a claim that "Nights in White Satin" had not been written by Justin Hayward at all, but that in fact the Moody Blues' management had simply bought the song outright in 1966 from an Italian group called the Jelly Roll and taken credit for it. This claim seems to have arisen from the discovery of a 7" single by the Jelly Roll which carries the words "This is the original version of Nights in White Satin" on the label.
Actually, "Les Jelly Roll" was a French band who did this cover of the Moody Blues song, and had the opportunity to release it in Italy, on Ricordi (an Italian record label), a few months before the original was released there. So as a joke (they appear not to have been a very serious band), they put the famous sentence on the cover.
Personnel
- Justin Hayward - acoustic guitar, lead vocals
- Ray Thomas - flute, backing vocals
- Mike Pinder - Mellotron, backing vocals, narration (on "Late Lament"), gong
- John Lodge - bass, backing vocals
- Graeme Edge - drums, backing vocals, percussion
- Peter Knight and the London Festival Orchestra - orchestral arrangements
Chart performance
Theme park attraction and other uses
The work was reinterpreted as the focus of Nights in White Satin: The Trip, 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, were provided 3D glasses, and upon return were greeted with the question, "How was your Trip?" Visual effects, digital CGI and special effects were designed, produced, and installed by Attraction Design Services; ride vehicles were from ETF.
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.
Other uses of the song
- This was used as the title song of the now obscure 1987 TV movie Nights in White Satin.
- This song was featured in Wolfgang Petersen's 1991 film Shattered.
- This song was featured in the 1992 film Split Second.
- This song was featured in Robert De Niro's 1993 film A Bronx Tale.
- This song was featured in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film Casino.
- This song was played briefly in the King of the Hill episode "The Trouble with Gribbles," which was originally transmitted in 2001.
- This song was featured in Rob Zombie's 2009 film Halloween II, a sequel to his 2007 remake of the 1978 film Halloween.
- This song was featured in Bertrand Bonello's 2011 film House of Tolerance.
- This song was played over the opening credits of Tim Burton's 2012 film Dark Shadows.
- This song was featured in the 2006 comedy/parody film American Dreamz.
- This song was featured in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, a novel by Stephen Chbosky, as it appeared on a music playlist compiled by the novel's protagonist, Charlie.
- This song was featured in The Boat That Rocked.
- This song was featured in the Heath Kirchart segment in the 2001 Transworld Skateboarding video Sight Unseen.
- The song was featured in the Wiseguy episode "No One Gets Out of Here Alive," in the climactic scene between Vinnie Terranova and Sonny Steelgrave. This was removed in the DVD release.
- The song was featured in the TV movie The 70s.
- This song was featured in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo when Deuce got high on space cake.
- This song was featured in the Fringe episode "In Absentia," appearing in the background as Walter Bishop addresseed his future self on a video tape.
- This song was featured in the Freaks and Geeks episode "Girlfriends and Boyfriends."
- This song was featured in Ben Young's 2016 film Hounds of Love.
Sandra version
"Nights in White Satin" is a pop-rock cover version of the selection written and composed by Justin Hayward, which was performed by the German singer Sandra. The song appeared on Sandra's sixth studio album Fading Shades (1995).
It was produced by Michael Cretu and received mixed reception from music critics. The song was released as the lead single in the spring of 1995 (see 1995 in music), although it failed to match the success of Sandra's previous singles. The song peaked at #1 in Israel (spending two weeks at the top), #17 in Finland, and #34 in New Zealand (Sandra's only charting hit there). In Germany it only peaked at #86, becoming her least successful lead single in that country to date. In the United Kingdom, it failed to enter the chart.
The music video, directed by Angel Hart, showed only close ups of Sandra's face as she was pregnant at the time. She even had to sit during the recording sessions of the album. (Note that the Fading Shades album cover was taken from the music video.)
Charts
Other cover versions
- Franck Pourcel (Instrumental, 1967)
- I Nomadi "Ho difeso il mio amore" (Nights in White Satin) (I Nomadi album, 1968)
- Dalida "Un po' d'amore" (1968)
- Tommy Körberg "Nights in White Satin" (Nature Boy album, 1968) and "Nätter av saknad", Swedish version (Judy min vän album, 1969)
- Billie Davis (Decca F12977, single, 1969)
- Eric Burdon and War (The Black-Man's Burdon album, 1970)
- Johnny Maestro & the Brooklyn Bridge, (The Brooklyn Bridge album, 1970)
- Tim Weisberg "Fog and Spice" (LP,'72/flute rendition, A&M Records/West Hollywood)
- Deodato (Deodato 2 album, 1973)
- Percy Faith and His Orchestra {Clair album, 1973)
- Juliane Werding "Wildes Wasser," German version (single, 1973)
- Giorgio Moroder (Knights in White Satin album, 1976)
- The London Symphony Orchestra (Classic Rock album, 1977)
- Bermuda Triangle Band (Bermuda Triangle album, 1977)
- The Dickies (Dawn of the Dickies album, 1979)
- Marie Laforêt "Blanche nuit de satin", French version (single, 1982)
- Elkie Brooks (UK #32 Chart Hit 1982) (Pearls II album, 1982)
- Jon St. James (Trans-Atlantic album, 1984)
- The Shadows (Moonlight Shadows album, 1986) (Instrumental version)
- Jacky Cheung (????? (In My Dream Last Night) on his ????? album, 1988)
- James Last (Instrumental) 1991
- Alain Bashung (Osez Joséphine album, 1991)
- Colin Blunstone (Split Second OST, 1992)
- David Lanz (Skyline Firedance album, 1992)
- Nancy Sinatra (One More Time album, 1995)
- Sandra (Fading Shades album, 1995)
- Lucie Bílá "Noc je jak satén" - Czech version (1998)
- The Bates - German Punk band version on album 2nd Skin (2000)
- Sort Sol (Snakecharmer album, 2001)
- Mario Frangoulis ("Nights in White Satin" - "Notte Di Luce" on his Sometimes I Dream album, 2002)
- The Vision Bleak ("Nights in White Satin" - on Songs of Good Taste EP, 2001)
- God Is an Astronaut ("NIWS", The End of the Beginning album, 2002)
- Tori Amos covered this song several times on tour during 2003 and 2005.
- John Cowan and Moody Bluegrass, (Moody Bluegrass album, 2004)
- Declan Galbraith (Thank You album, 2006)
- Il Divo (Notte Di Luce on their Siempre album, 2006)
- Glenn Hughes with John Frusciante and Chad Smith (Music For The Divine album, 2006) (Used in the movie Stealth)
- Quidam (Track 7, "Nights in White Satin", on album HalfPlugged, 2007)
- Tina Arena on her album Songs of Love & Loss II, 2008
- Midnight Movies (Nights EP, 2008)
- Fariborz Lachini A Solo Piano version on his Golden Memories 1 album, 2008
- Collide (These Eyes Before album, 2009)
- Eugene McCarthy (De Barras, Sitting Room Sessions 2010)
- Zeds Dead (Dubstep Remix 2010)
- Will Martin (Inspirations album, 2010)
- The Man-Eating Tree (on their Vine album, 2010)
- Bettye LaVette (Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook album, 2010)
- Gerry & The Pacemakers - Nights in White Satin
- Offer Nissim featuring Ivri Lider - Nights in White Satin (Offer Nissim Remix)
- Jennifer Rush
- Damien Saez (multiple live performances)
- Celtic Thunder (Performed by Celtic Thunder member Paul Byrom)
- Blumfeld (B-side of Single "Tics" and live performances)
- Rock Goddess (Live performances)
- Ed Kavalee on Get This
- Matt Cardle (B-side to "When We Collide" single)
- Transatlantic on their 2014 progressive rock album Kaleidoscope (bonus disc)
- Emily West performed it during the Top 12 of season 9 of America's Got Talent
- Nokturnal Mortum covered it in the remastered version of The Voice of Steel
- The Raleigh Ringers - Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues, arr. Andrew G. Metz
- Oceans of Slumber (Winter album, 2016)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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