“Nights in white satin”, the long life of great songs
Justin Hayward, vocalist and guitarist of the Moody Blues, was 19 years old when he wrote “Nights in white satin”, during a three-month period spent in Belgium, in Mouscron, in 1967, for the preparation of what would become the album ” Days of Future Passed”.
The inspiration for the text came from a gift he received from an ex-girlfriend of white silk sheets. As the author recalled, “Every note and every word of the text were very personal, they had a meaning for me. At that time a love story was ending and another was about to begin. I sat on the bank of the I read it and wrote the first two verses, the rest came as a consequence. I played it to the others the next morning, in the rehearsal room, and they weren’t very impressed. But Mike Pinder said: ‘Let me listen to it again’, and played the riff at mellotron. At that point the others also pricked up their ears, and probably changed their minds about me too.”
Hayward had joined the group a few months ago, together with bassist John Lodge, replacing Denny Laine and Clint Warwick, who had left the group the year after the Moody Blues had had their first success with “Go Now”.
The Moody Blues entered the progressive phase of their career with “Days of Future Passed”, recorded with the London Festival Orchestra and considered one of the first concept albums, which was released in November 1967. In the same month the 45 rpm single was released “Nights in white satin”, in a shortened version compared to the album, which entered the charts (at number 19 in England, at 103 in the United States the following year). The 1972 re-release fared better: number 2 in the USA; number 9 in the UK. The song returned to the UK charts in 2010, at number 51.
“Nights in white satin” was also a success in the Italian version, with the lyrics written by Daniele Pace. In reality Pace wrote two lyrics, one for Dalida (“A little love”) and one recorded simultaneously by the Profeti and Bit-Nik (“I defended my love”), who published it at the same time in March 1968. But the version with the greatest impact was that of Nomadi, released in April 1968.
The song had numerous re-recordings, both in the original language and in other languages (there are over 250 to date), until 1976, when Giorgio Moroder made it the main theme and title of the album “Knights in white satin”, reworking it in his peculiar electronic disco style.
The most recent revisitation of the song comes these days, with the version published by Planet Funk.
