Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Gazing at people, some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through they can't understand
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end
And I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I've always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I'd always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Gazing at people, some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through they can't understand
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end
And I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I've always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
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To me, this song refers to the journey of life that we are all on. While not everyone is a romantic I feel that most of us (human beings) seek love, companionship or at the very least acknowledgement and understanding.
Being a "knight" in white satin is like being a chivalrous night of Old (King Arthurs) time. Seeking a sense of completion from finding and connecting with that fair maiden (soul mate or love.) or current love interest. Psss. Don't worry ladie's I am not leaving you out. A female can be a Knight in White satin.
Anyhow, all of us who have been intwined in a romantic liason know the many corridors, avenues and sometimes dead ends that our minds and thoughts can take us down. We also know what it is like to create illusions on how things are, can be, and should be. If we are lucky (and diligent) we might find someone to share the "illusion" with. Yet, "how long can we share the illusion?" It depends upon the two and many other variables. Family, money life and or whatever factors that the two feel/ar affected by.
In the song he mentions "beauty I have missed with these eyes before." I feel he is refering to what alot of us take for granted or fail to see. It sounds to me that he is at a poignant and pondering type of moment. Maybe he's sitting on a park bench in Central Park. Better yet, Hyde park in London.
Here he is observing life going on. From a mother's pt. of view, to the elderly, lonely man, to impassioned lovers.
Finally, the last stanza in reference to the moon, "cold hearted orb, that rules through the night," is the inanimate objectivity of the moon and how it just is. It neither is good or bad, it merely is.
It apppears cold to him for maybe he is in a state of confusion or sadness. Perhaps it may seem bleak because of the weather where he is. (say England). I think that it is his state of mind though.
Inevitably, no matter what the outcome of a love affair, or life or anything we experience or go through. It all comes back to you. And how you choose to perceive and look back on an issue or event. "And which is an illusion."
He also has said that the song took about as long to write as it took to play. He was up very late one night in his apartment, apparently fretting over his relationship situation, and, as he's put it, "...the song just came out."
As a child, this was a very powerful image. As I heard this song, I never knew the "Nights in White Satin" romantic analogy. But the white knights never reaching the end is a perfectly complete poetic and meaningful meaning to the song. And I would bet Hayward and Pinder knew that. After all, according to the cover artist they carefully approved and chose the imagery for all their early album covers. They put the Knight in there for a reason....
I must admit, the spoken section at the end is a bit excessive.
The question: how now do you define those things you're confused about?
The songwriter's decision is to allow he and his lover to determine the definition within the illusion. And i guess the reason this song brings back bitter memories is that i chose otherwise.
To me the song is all about letting go of the one you love so she can have her own life when you realise that your attachment will prevent her from having that life
The songs starts with the double entendre, "Nights in white satin, never reaching the end" then the "Letters I've written, never meaning to send" are his Knights in White Satin. These Knights would have told her what he can't say anymore, just what the truth is, because he really does love her
The rest of the song fits the pattern. Couples can't understand what he is going through, friends tell him he shouldn't have let her go, and he realises he never realised her beauty
The song title conjures a fantasy of romantic nights in bed with pristine white sheets.
The narrator sings about this love, this fantasy or memory he has for another. Writing letters, tormenting himself over her. He watches other in love, and no one can understand his hurt, his pain.
"...Letters I've written
Never meaning to send..."
"Gazing at people, some hand in hand
Just what I'm going through they can't understand
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end"
Other try to tell him to get over it, and this causes rifts with 'some'.
He doesn't know why he cannot move on, but it's how he feels and
it's who he is now.