On this date in 1967, The Moody Blues released Nights in White Satin. 10 facts about the song.
The song was written by Justin Hayward when he was nineteen years old.
Someone gifted him a set of satin sheets when he was living in a bed-sit in Bayswater. He said, "It was a very emotional time as I was at the end of one big love affair and the start of another. A lot of that came out in the song."
It is one of the tracks on the album Days of Future Passed, which is a concept album based on different times of day. Other tracks include Tuesday Afternoon and Dawn is a Feeling.
The B side of the single was a song called Cities, which was not on the LP.
It reached 19 in the UK charts but only 103 in the US, because at the time, listeners there didn’t take to longer songs. That said, Americans did take to Hey Jude and Layla in 1972, so when Nights in White Satin was re-released then it shot to number 2.
In 1979 a punk band called The Dickies released a punk version, which the Moody Blues themselves often used to play themselves when carrying out sound checks before a performance.
As well as The Dickes, Procol Harum, Eric Burdon, Percy Faith, Nancy Sinatra and Il Divo all covered this song. Justin Hayward's personal favourite, however, was by the soul singer Bettye LaVette.
The week of December 2, 1972, this song plunged from #17 to completely out of the Hot 100, setting a record for the biggest drop out of that chart in a single week.
The LP version has a poem at the end called Late Lament, which was written by Graeme Edge and recited by Mike Pinder, but this was dropped from the single.
Nights in White Satin was the title of a 1987 film directed by Michael Barnard, and starring Kip Gilman and Priscilla Harris. The song featured prominently in the soundtrack, particularly during a rooftop dance sequence.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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