Cue the Rockumentary theme!
The Moody Blues had released no fewer than seven successful albums since Justin Hayward joined the group in 1966. Their most recent, “Seventh Sojourn”, had only one song released as a single in the US, and it only did moderately well. It wasn’t even the best song on the disk. I found “Sojourn” to be a disappointment, but nothing like the disaster of “Octave” in 1978. From 1974 to 1978, the band split up and tried different solo and duo acts, but they found they needed to come together again to be successful. In 1981, their disk “Long Distance Voyager” would re-establish them at the top of the game.
In 1971 and ‘72, a number of singles were released in the US from their 1967 disk “Days of Future Passed” and their 1968 disk “In Search of the Lost Chord”. These songs had long been known to FM Progressive Rock listeners. Now they would go mainstream on American AM radio. This was the concluding number from “Days of Future Passed”, written by Hayward, and it is symphonic in scope.
I loved the Moody Blues!
Although there was always some clown who would say that “Nights in White satin” was actually “Knights in White satin’ and was, of course:
RAYSISS!