Image via Wikipedia
I love when a music post teaches me more about the history of a song. I have found Wikipedia invaluable in constructing posts. The structure of Wikipedia lends itself well to an artist’s discography. Wikipedia discography’s are listed chronological and contain album cover art that is public domain (i.e. reusable for posting). Each discography has many facts about the date of the recording, producer, the song listing, the musicians who played on the session, etc.
“Tuesday Afternoon” (sometimes referred to as “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)”, or simply “Forever Afternoon”) is a 1968 single by English symphonic rock band The Moody Blues, and presented in its original album form on their 1967 album Days of Future Passed in two parts.
The first part, the one most familiar to listeners, called “Tuesday Afternoon”, was originally released on The Moody Blues 1967 album Days of Future Passed, a concept album chronicling a typical day. On the album, it was part one of “The Afternoon” track titled “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)”.
The second part of the album version is a track entitled “(Evening) Time to Get Away”, which is uncredited on the original album. Composed by John Lodge, the song hinges on the end of a work day and returning home.
“Tuesday Afternoon” was released as a single in 1968, and was the second single from Days of Future Passed (the first being “Nights in White Satin”). It was backed with another Days track, “Another Morning”. The single version of “Tuesday Afternoon” was oddly edited down to 2:16, ending before the repeat of the opening riff and “Tuesday afternoon” verse.
According to an interview with Justin Hayward, he wrote “Tuesday Afternoon” while sitting in the middle of a field near his home in England on a beautiful spring afternoon. He claims that he had his acoustic guitar in hand and the song just came to him. The song features Justin Hayward on lead vocals and acoustic guitar. The backing melody comes from the mellotron, which was played by Mike Pinder. There is also a short flute solo at the end played by Ray Thomas.
