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When I bought this album two years ago, I knew the Moody Blues for their most famous song, clearly talking about “Nights In White Satin.” I bought the record anyway, because I had recently discovered progressive music through Pink Floyd and company; a genre that has always fascinated me for its tendency to create conceptual albums, like real books that talk about different, more or less serious themes, and highlight the mood and ideas of the artist at a certain point in their career. I know this also occurs in many other non-progressive artists, but it is only in this genre that a theme, as in this case the passage of the day, is truly the central focus of the work, even on a technical-musical level.
Once upon a time in London in 1967, there was a record company, Decca Records, which for essentially promotional purposes proposed to the band led by John Lodge and Justin Hayward an ambitious and practically impossible project: to produce a rock version of Antonin Dvořák's “New World Symphony”. The band accepted, realizing later that it was an immense piece of nonsense. The guys, abandoning the crazy idea, continued to work on their original projects, not disdaining a little help from the already “available” London Festival Orchestra. Final result? A nice repertoire of seven pop-progressive songs immersed in a symphonic music matrix. A nice mess, the record executives must have thought. Skepticism persisted until its release in 1967, when the record became a great success.
As I have already mentioned, the “concept” is based on the passage of the day: the titles range from the dawn of “The Day Begins: Morning Glory” to the sunset of “Nights in White Satin.” The songs all have a symphonic introduction and conclusion, which lengthens and breaks the pieces, both between themselves and within them. It’s almost impossible to hear the track change from one piece to another; and it is also difficult in some cases to associate a single musical theme with a track.
From the classical and lyrical introduction of the first part (“The day begins” and “Dawn is a Feeling”), we move to perhaps the “flattest” part of the record, namely, the morning and noon, where the tracks are really a bit too carefree, and strongly contrast with the orchestra. But once this weakness is overcome, we reach the 3 best tracks, in the afternoon and evening. “Afternoon” is remarkable. It contains 2 equally extraordinary themes: from the first “Forever Afternoon”, with a decidedly lively sound, to the very high notes of “Peak Hour”, where melancholy and the feeling of having to leave, to abandon the safety of the day moving ever closer to the unknown evening, prevails.
“Evening” is even better. The introduction, left to the strings, precedes a very powerful bass and drum sound, Oriental-Indian inspired, inevitably psychedelic and hypnotic. Another symphonic interlude leaves room for an even heavier theme, so you find yourself stunned again, before the final “relaxation.”
Everyone practically knows “Nights in White Satin.” Hayward's pure voice sings
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.
while the sound of the synthesizer accompanies it with chilling sounds and voices, like ghosts from the past. The song speaks of a lost love, whose only remnants are a white fabric, symbol of innocence and simplicity, of a beauty now faded.
In my opinion, the songs could have retained their beauty even without the symphonic component, which makes everything appear a bit artificial and cumbersome. Nonetheless, the record may represent a pleasant discovery for anyone who wants to approach the progressive genre and that symphonic rock that achieved great success in the following years.
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