Justin Hayward’s role as the singer, songwriter, guitarist and composer for The Moody Blues literally resulted from the luck of the draw. After a year of writing and demoing his own songs, Hayward answered an ad for Eric Burdon’s lead guitarist. Burdon’s group The Animals found someone else, but gave a bagful of leftover replies to Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues, who was looking to replace the departed Denny Laine. In what has to be one of rock’s greatest serendipitous moments, Thomas pulled Hayward’s name out of the bag at random as his first choice. The rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s what Justin told Performing Songwriter about the writing of “Nights in White Satin”:
At the time when I wrote “Nights In White Satin” I didn’t own many things in the world, but I did own something totally useless which was a set of white satin sheets that this girlfriend of mine had given me. Very impractical, particularly if you have a bit of beard growth and those sheets rub against your face (laughs). They looked quite nice, and they were quite romantic. It was really about that, about love and the end of one big affair and the beginning of another. It was about real things that were happening in my life. I suppose I always thought that I would call it “Nights in White Satin.” Now I think if I wrote it, I’d probably think of another title, probably go further into the song to look for a title. It wouldn’t be an obvious choice now, but it was right for the time. It sort of had that double meaning, which was intentional, of sort of medieval knights as well.
——It was the first song I ever performed that really got right down to the bone. There was a kind of nakedness about it. It’s also very risky. I remember when we were making it thinking it’s kind of borderline being good, but if you just go over the line a little bit it would be really bad (laughs). A lot of really good songs are like that, they tread that line. People like that because there’s a kind of risk in that where it’s like, “Oh great, he pulled it off, he didn’t make it really stupid” (laughs). So I knew it was very powerful.
The British and the French really went for it, but Americans didn’t. FM radio was just beginning. “Tuesday Afternoon” was the record they released here. Funny thing was they said, “’Nights in White Satin’ will never make it because it four minutes long, and there’s a long boring flute bit and you can’t dance to it.” But you know, a young girl interviewed me a few years ago, and I said that to her, and she said, “That’s the biggest mistake they made.” I asked her what she meant, and she said that every dance she ever went to as a kid, they used to finish with “Nights in White Satin.” Anybody can dance to it, you just sort of grope the person and shuffle around the floor (laughs). They used to play it as the last dance and it meant a lot to her because that was the only one she could ever get a partner on (laughs). So actually, millions and millions of people have danced to it.
—By Bill DeMain
From Performing Songwriter Issue 13, July/August 1995
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