The Moody Blues: Cities

Back after another day off on the blog – I think I am going to give it another year and get 1000 posts in and call it quits. I think by then, I will have exhausted my memory banks. So, I expect I will be taking a few more breaks before it is all said and done. But, there are a lot of songs until then.

It is a Friday and that means a featured flipside. “Cities,” by The Moody Blues, was only available as the “B” side of “Nights in White Satin” until 1987 when the LP “Prelude” was released. The single was released twice in the US and four times in the UK. In 1967, in support of the LP “Days of Future Passed,” it was initially released. “Nights in White Satin” failed to chart in America, but hit #19 on the UK charts.

A renewed interest in “Days of Future Passed” in 1972 resulted in a second release of “Nights in White Satin”/”Cities.” The “A” side moved to the top ten in the UK and peaked at #2 in the US. It was a number one record in Canada. It also charted in the UK in 1979 and 2010.

“Cities” is not the classic that “Nights in White Satin” is, but it is a nice little “forgotten” Justin Hayward composition. While I already had the LP when the single was re-released in 1972, I purchased it as “Cities,” to that point, was not on an album.