Tuesday Afternoon

The Moody Blues' Dreamy hit

This song has been popping in and out of my head for a couple of weeks now. Today is my birthday and unfortunately not getting enough sleep has exploded into a cough and cold. So I won’t be too detailed with this one.

Justin Hayward wrote this one for the Moody Blues album Days of Future Past. He said that he wrote the song on a Tuesday afternoon in Lypiatt Park, in western England near Stroud. Hayward's mother had taken him and his brother to the park while they were growing up, and he revisited the park during the production of Days of Future Passed to write the song. He said that he wrote the song "with guitar and joint in hand". It has that dreamy feel of just walking in the park that I really love.

The song was cut down for radio, fading out during Ray Thomas’ flute solo but on the album it has a gorgeous classical arrangement that kicks in where the radio edit ends. The London Festival Orchestra performs the orchestral link between parts one and two of the song and was recorded separately from the Moodies' portions. The link was arranged by Peter Knight, who arranged orchestral sections for the entire album. Then there Moodies come in again with another verse and chorus. The entire track runs 8 and a half minutes.

They released this lovely psychedelic animated lyric video of the single edit last year. Unfortunately I can’t find who directed it or did the animation.

Here’s Hayward talking about writing the song in 1990 and singing a bit of it. It’s a beautiful acoustic version.

Enjoy your song of the day! And happy birthday to me!