"Moonlight Shadow" is a song written and performed by English
multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments, often but not exclusively at a professional level of proficiency.
Also known as woodwind doubler, doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and mor ...
Mike Oldfield
Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is an English retired musician, songwriter and producer best known for his debut studio album ''Tubular Bells'' (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success. Though primarily a gu ...
, released as a single in May 1983 by
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), ...
, and included on his eighth album, ''
Crises
A crisis (: crises; : critical) is any event or period that will lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affairs, especially when ...
'', of the same year. The vocals were performed by Scottish vocalist
Maggie Reilly
Maggie Reilly (born 15 September 1956) is a Scottish singer best known for her collaborations with the composer and instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. Most notably, she performed lead vocals on the Oldfield songs " Family Man", " Moonlight Shadow ...
, who had collaborated with Mike Oldfield since 1980. It is Oldfield's most successful single, reaching number one on numerous charts around Europe. In the UK, it reached number four during a nineteen-week chart run and was subsequently listed by the
Official Charts Company
The Official UK Charts Company Limited (formerly Music Industry Chart Services Limited), trading as the Official Charts Company (OCC) or the Official Charts (formerly the Chart Information Network), is a British inter-professional organisation ...
as the 29th best-selling single of 1983.
Release
The single peaked at number four in the
British charts, making it Oldfield's second-highest ranked single after "
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...
", which reached number three in 1976. "Moonlight Shadow" was successful throughout Europe; it reached number one in many countries, including Italy, Austria, Switzerland for four weeks and Norway for six weeks. It spent four weeks at number two in West Germany, reached number six in Australia, and peaked at number three in New Zealand and France. It was re-released as a
maxi-CD single in 1993 to promote Oldfield's ''
Elements''
box set
A boxed set or (its US name) box set is a set of items (for example, a compilation of books, musical recordings, films or television programs) traditionally packaged in a box, hence 'boxed', and offered for sale as a single unit.
Music
Artists ...
, charting at number 52.
A
12-inch single
The twelve-inch single (often written as 12-inch or 12) is a type of vinyl ( polyvinyl chloride or PVC) gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time with a "single" or a few related sound tracks on each surface, compa ...
(later reissued on a
3" CD single) featured an extended version of the song with an extra verse. The extended mix also appears on his compilation album ''
The Platinum Collection''. Both the 7 inch and 12 inch singles featured the
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...
"Rite of Man", which was a rare instance of Oldfield singing lead vocal.
In 1991, the song was re-released in
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, and in 1993 it was featured on promos for ''
Elements'' in France and
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
. The 1993 reissue included "Bones" and "In the Pool" as B-sides, which had previously been released as B-sides with "
To France
"To France" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984. It is from the album ''Discovery'' and features Maggie Reilly on vocals.
The musical theme used in "To France" was also used on the first track on side two of the ''Discovery' ...
". Furthermore, the name of the song was used for the 2013
Universal Music
Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as Universal Music Group or Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum ...
compilation album of Oldfield's music, ''
Moonlight Shadow: The Collection''.
Live performances
Maggie Reilly
Maggie Reilly (born 15 September 1956) is a Scottish singer best known for her collaborations with the composer and instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. Most notably, she performed lead vocals on the Oldfield songs " Family Man", " Moonlight Shadow ...
sang "Moonlight Shadow" live when she
toured with Oldfield in the 1980s. However, since then, other singers have performed the song live with Oldfield, including
Anita Hegerland
Anita Hegerland (born 3 March 1961 in Sandefjord) is a Norwegian singer, most known for her childhood career in Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and subsequent vocal contributions to Mike Oldf ...
during the late 1980s,
Pepsi Demacque at the
''Tubular Bells III'' premiere and at the
Live Then & Now 1999 tour,
Miriam Stockley
Miriam Arlene Stockley (born 15 April 1962) is a South African singer. She was born in Johannesburg, and her work is influenced by the Music of Africa, African music of her home country. Her distinctive ''vocal warm up#Vocalise, vocalise'' style ...
at the
Millennium concert and
Nokia Night of the Proms in Germany, and
Rosa Cedrón at
Nokia Night of the Proms in Spain.
In 2020 Maggie Reilly released an updated version where she is the vocalist.
Artwork
The original cover art is an enlargement of the lower right corner of the ''Crises'' album cover by UK artist Terry Ilott. This shows a man with his foot on a ledge with the sea and sky in the background. The moon, the tower and its shadow from the album cover cannot be seen on the single cover.
The artwork for the 1993 reissue followed the style of the ''Elements'' artwork in most countries.
Production
An early version of the song was entitled "Midnight Passion" with vocals by British singer
Hazel O'Connor
Hazel Thereasa O'Connor (born 16 May 1954) is a British singer-songwriter and actress. She became famous in the early 1980s with hit singles " Eighth Day", " D-Days" and " Will You?" She also starred in the 1980 film '' Breaking Glass''.
Caree ...
. Along with Maggie Reilly, a girlfriend of one of the roadies when Oldfield was on tour, Oldfield used a rhyming dictionary and recorded many of the lyrics word by word.
According to bassist
Phil Spalding
Philip Trevor Spalding (19 November 1957 – 5 February 2023) was an English bass player. He was best known as a session musician and player of Fender Precision Bass guitars. He played and appeared with performing artists such as Mike Oldfiel ...
the initial tracks recorded simultaneously for "Moonlight Shadow" were acoustic guitar (Oldfield), bass (Spalding), drums (Phillips) and electric guitar (
Tim Renwick
Timothy John Pearson Renwick (born 7 August 1949) is an English guitarist. He is best known for his association with Al Stewart in his early career and for his long-standing role as lead guitarist for the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver. His single ...
) in early February 1983 at Oldfield's studio in
Denham, Buckinghamshire
Denham is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Buckinghamshire, England, approximately 17 mi from central London, 2 mi northwest of Uxbridge and just north of junction 1 of the M40 motorway. The name is derived from the Old En ...
.
Renwick's guitar track was apparently not used in the final track.
The remaining tracks including the vocals and Oldfield on electric guitar were later overdubs.
According to Oldfield,
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label owned by Universal Music Group. They were originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman (musician), ...
were immediately happy with the song and wanted more pieces similar to it. Reilly also sang on "
Foreign Affair" on ''Crises''. An unplugged mix of the song appears on the 2013
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. Mercury Records released ...
reissue of the ''Crises'' album.
Oldfield later
sampled
Sample or samples may refer to:
* Sample (graphics), an intersection of a color channel and a pixel
* Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of something
* Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal
* Sample ...
the drums from "Moonlight Shadow" for the song "
Man in the Rain" on his 1998 album, ''
Tubular Bells III''.
Lyrical content
It has been suggested that the lyrics of the song are a reference to the
murder of John Lennon
On the evening of 8 December 1980, the English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded in the archway of the Dakota, his residence in New York City. The killer, Mark David Chapman, was an American Beatles fa ...
, despite the fact that the events in the song do not correspond with those of Lennon's murder. Lennon was shot four times just before 11 pm, whereas in the song the time is 4 am and the number of shots is six. Also, the night Lennon was shot (8 December 1980) was a
new moon
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse. ...
, so there was no
moonlight
Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes.
History
The ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras was aware that "''the sun provides the moon with its ...
, and in the song, it is Saturday night, while Lennon was killed on a Monday night. When asked whether "Moonlight Shadow" is a reference to John Lennon's murder in a 1995 interview, Oldfield responded:
The song's closing verse, ‘Caught in the middle of a hundred and five, the night was heavy and the air was alive’ left many people confused regarding its meaning. Oldfield explained on his website in 1995, "Well, it was a hundred and five people, just signifying a large amount of people, and presumably it was a hundred and five rather than a hundred and four or whatever because ‘five’ rhymed with the next line!" In the extended version of the song, there is a final verse with several extra lines, one of which was ‘The crowd gathered just to leave him’. This helps explain where the large amount of people fit into the song.
Video
There are two versions of the video: the full-length original, and a shorter one which omits a verse. The reason for the shorter version was for the requirements of some TV broadcasters, and the way both versions are edited suggests that Oldfield's touring guitarist "Ant" (Anthony Glynne) performs the second,
overdriven
Distortion and overdrive are forms of audio signal processing used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, usually by increasing their gain, producing a "fuzzy", "growling", or "gritty" tone. Distortion is most commonly ...
half of the guitar solo, which is not the case. Also in the video is Oldfield's touring drummer,
Pierre Moerlen
Pierre Moerlen (23 October 1952, Colmar, Haut-Rhin – 3 May 2005, Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, near Strasbourg) was a French drummer and percussionist, best known for his work with Gong and Mike Oldfield and as Pierre Moerlen's Gong.
Biography
Pie ...
, miming the part played by
Simon Phillips on the recording. The music video was directed by Keith McMillan and shot on location at
Hatfield House
Hatfield House is a Grade I listed English country house, country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England.
The present Jacobean architecture, Jacobean hous ...
and
Brocket Hall
Brocket Hall is a Neoclassical architecture, neo-classical English country house, country house set in a large park at the western side of the urban area of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, England. The estate is equipped with two golf cour ...
in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...
, England (the band are seen performing in Brocket Hall's ballroom and the girl, played by
Francesca Gonshaw
Francesca Gonshaw (born 25 November 1959) is an English former actress who appeared in television, theatre and cinema productions in the 1980s. From 1982 to 1987, she appeared as Maria Recamier in the BBC's Allo 'Allo!'' television situati ...
, runs in through the door and up the staircase in Brocket's hallway).
Track listing
* 7-inch vinyl
# "Moonlight Shadow" (7" mix) – 3:37
# "Rite of Man" – 2:21
* 12-inch vinyl
# "Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 5:18
# "Rite of Man" – 2:21
* West German vinyl
# "Moonlight Shadow" – 3:37
# "Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 5:18
# "Rite of Man" – 2:21
# "To France" – 4:43
# "Jungle Gardenia" – 2:45
# "Taurus 3" – 2:25
* 1988 CD
# "Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 5:18
# "Rite of Man" – 2:21
# "
To France
"To France" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984. It is from the album ''Discovery'' and features Maggie Reilly on vocals.
The musical theme used in "To France" was also used on the first track on side two of the ''Discovery' ...
" – 4:44
# "Jungle Gardenia" – 2:44
* 1993 CD
# "Moonlight Shadow" – 3:35
# "Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 5:18
# "In the Pool"* – 3:40
# "Bones"* – 3:19
(*: original B-sides for the 1984 "
To France
"To France" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984. It is from the album ''Discovery'' and features Maggie Reilly on vocals.
The musical theme used in "To France" was also used on the first track on side two of the ''Discovery' ...
" single)
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Appearances and influence in other media
"Moonlight Shadow" appeared on the soundtrack of the Italian comedy ''
Vacanze di Natale'' (1983). It is also the theme song for Dave Angel, Eco-Warrior, a character in the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
TV comedy series ''
The Fast Show
''The Fast Show'', also known as ''Brilliant'' in the United States, is a BBC comedy sketch show that ran on BBC Two, BBC 2 from 1994 to 1997, with specials in 2000 and 2014. The show's central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Si ...
''.
Groove Coverage version
In 2002, a cover by
Groove Coverage peaked at No. 3 in the
German Top 10 (simultaneously, a similar version of Oldfield's "
To France
"To France" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1984. It is from the album ''Discovery'' and features Maggie Reilly on vocals.
The musical theme used in "To France" was also used on the first track on side two of the ''Discovery' ...
" by
Novaspace was in the German Top 30). "Moonlight Shadow" appeared on Groove Coverage's debut album, ''
Covergirl
CoverGirl is an American cosmetics brand founded in Maryland, United States, by the Noxzema Chemical Company. It was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1989, and later acquired by Coty, Inc. in 2016. The Noxell Company advertised this cosmetics l ...
''. The vocals are by
Melanie Munch, who is known by her stage name Mell. Aside from the single remixes, the album also contains a piano version, featuring piano by
Verena Rehm
Verena Carmen Rehm (born 14 May 1984) is a German musician best known as the backing vocalist and pianist of the Eurodance
Eurodance (sometimes referred to as Euro-NRG) is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the late 1980s in ...
.
Track listings
CD single
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Radio version) – 2:52
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Original radio edit) – 2:54
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 6:56
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Rocco remix) – 6:58
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Warp Brothers remix) – 7:37
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Video) – 2:53
Maxi single
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Radio version) – 2:52
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Original radio edit) – 2:59
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version) – 6:58
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Rocco remix) – 6:58
#"Beat Just Goes" – 3:53
Remix single
A-side
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Extended version)
B-side
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Club version)
#"Beat Just Goes" (Club mix)
US maxi single
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Josh Harris Radio Edit) – 3:46
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Josh Harris Club Mix) – 7:21
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Josh Harris Dub) – 6:39
#"Moonlight Shadow" (French Club Mix) – 6:36
#"Moonlight Shadow" (French Short Cut) – 3:05
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Plastic Men UK Mix) – 6:16
#"Moonlight Shadow" (
Warp Brothers Remix) – 7:36
#"Moonlight Shadow" (North Starz Remix) – 6:57
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Alternate Radio Version) – 2:51
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Original Mix) – 2:53
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Extended Mix) – 6:54
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Rocco Remix) – 6:56
#"Moonlight Shadow" (A cappella) – 1:50
#"Moonlight Shadow" (Pure & Direct Version) – 4:17
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
See also
*
List of European number-one hits of 1983
*
List of number-one singles of 1983 (Ireland)
*
List of number-one hits of 1983 (Italy)
*
List of number-one singles of 1983 (Spain)
This is a list of the Spanish Singles number-ones of 1983.
Chart history
See also
*1983 in music
*List of number-one hits (Spain)
* List of number-one singles of the 1980s in Spain
References
{{Spanish number-one hits
Lists of number-on ...
*
List of number-one singles and albums in Sweden
This is a list of number-one singles in Sweden at "Kvällstoppen" (Evening top list) 1962–1975, "Topplistan" (The top list) 1975–1997, "Hitlistan" (The hit list) 1998–2007, "Sverigetopplistan" (The Swedish top list) 2007 and forward.
Swed ...
*
List of number-one singles of the 1980s (Switzerland)
This is a list of singles that reached number one on the Swiss Hitparade during the 1980s.
Number-one singles
See also
*1980s in music
References
{{SwissNumber1s
Number-one singles
Switzerland
1980s
File:1980s replacement montage02.P ...
*
VG-lista 1964 to 1994
References
External links
*
*
*
{{authority control
1983 songs
1983 singles
1993 singles
2002 singles
European Hot 100 Singles number-one singles
Groove Coverage songs
Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
Maggie Reilly songs
Mike Oldfield songs
Murder ballads
Songs about death
Songs about ghosts
Number-one singles in Austria
Number-one singles in Italy
Number-one singles in Norway
Number-one singles in Spain
Number-one singles in Sweden
Number-one singles in Switzerland
Songs written by Mike Oldfield
Ultratop 50 Singles (Flanders) number-one singles
Virgin Records singles