Chasing the Eternal Now: The Moody Blues’ Dreamy Reverie – A song about losing yourself in a timeless moment, “Tuesday Afternoon” drifts through the haze of love and endless possibility.
Let’s wander back to that heady autumn of 1967, when the leaves swirled golden and the air buzzed with a new kind of sound—something symphonic, something strange. The Moody Blues unveiled “Tuesday Afternoon” (titled “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” on the album) as part of their groundbreaking LP Days of Future Passed, released November 10 on Deram Records. Paired with “Nights in White Satin” as a double A-side single in the UK, it didn’t chart there until a 1972 reissue hit number 24. In the U.S., though, it stood alone, peaking at number 24 on the Billboard Hot 100 by July 6, 1968, lingering for nine weeks after its May release. The album itself soared to number 3 on the Billboard 200 in ‘72, certified platinum by ‘78, but in ‘67, it was a sleeper—a quiet revolution spinning on turntables. For those of us who caught it then, it was a whisper from another world, a song that draped itself over Tuesday afternoons like a soft, endless dusk.
The genesis of “Tuesday Afternoon” lies with Justin Hayward, the band’s golden-voiced dreamer, who penned it in a burst of inspiration at age 20. Fresh from joining The Moody Blues in ‘66 after Denny Laine’s exit, Hayward scribbled it one spring day in ‘67, sitting by a riverbank with his acoustic guitar. The band had just ditched their R&B roots for something grander, hooking up with the London Festival Orchestra under Peter Knight’s baton. Recorded at Decca Studios with producer Tony Clarke, it was part of a concept album meant to trace a day’s arc—“Tuesday Afternoon” landing as the afternoon’s sigh, between “Dawn Is a Feeling” and “Evening”. Hayward’s lyrics flowed from a real moment—watching sunlight dance on water, feeling time slip away—while Mike Pinder’s Mellotron wove a tapestry of sound, a psychedelic shimmer that was new then, magical still.
What’s it saying? “Tuesday Afternoon” is a love song to the present, a plea to freeze the frame where “the trees are drawing me near” and “something calls to me.” It’s about a Tuesday that feels eternal, where love—or maybe just being—blurs the edges of hours into a dream you don’t want to wake from. “I’ve got to keep on chasing that afternoon,” Hayward sings, voice aching with wonder, and it’s a pull we all know—those fleeting times when the world slows, and you’re alive in every breath. For us who grew up with it, it’s the ‘60s distilled— incense curling from a dorm window, bell-bottoms brushing the grass, a sense that music could stretch beyond the everyday into something vast. It’s less a song than a feeling, a Tuesday we’ve all chased when life felt softer, less certain.
This one’s got a long shadow, too. The album’s fusion of rock and orchestra birthed progressive rock—think Yes, Genesis—and “Tuesday Afternoon” became a live staple, its flute solo (by Ray Thomas) a nod to the band’s whimsy. Covered by acts like Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs, it’s popped up in Mad Men and The Simpsons, proof it’s never faded. For us older souls, it’s a creased photo from a time when afternoons stretched forever—record players humming, friends sprawled on shag rugs, the world outside buzzing with Vietnam and flower power. The Moody Blues gave us a gift that floats above decades, a reminder of when we could lose ourselves in a song and find something eternal. Play it now, and Tuesday’s yours again—forever afternoon, calling you near.