| "Moonlight Shadow" | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Single by Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| from the album Crises | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| B-side | "Rite of Man" | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Released | 6 May 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Format | 7-inch vinyl 12-inch vinyl |
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| Genre | Pop rock | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Length | 3:37 | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Label | Virgin Records | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Mike Oldfield | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Producer | Mike Oldfield Simon Phillips[1] |
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| Mike Oldfield chronology | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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"Moonlight Shadow" is a pop song written and performed by English multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, released as a single in May 1983 and included in the album Crises of the same year.[2] The vocals were performed by Scottish vocalist Maggie Reilly, who had joined Mike Oldfield in 1980. It is Oldfield's most successful single to date.
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The single peaked at number 4 in the British charts, making it Oldfield's second highest ranked single after "Portsmouth", which reached number 3 in 1976. "Moonlight Shadow" was successful throughout Europe. It reached number 1 in countries, including Brazil for two weeks, Italy, Austria, Switzerland for four weeks and Norway for six weeks. It spent four weeks at number 2 in Germany and also hit number 6 in Australia. It was re-released as a maxi-CD single in 1993 to promote Oldfield's Elements box set, charting at number 52.
A 12" single (later reissued on a 3" CD single) featured an extended version of the song with an extra verse, and the single B-side was "Rite of Man", which was a rare instance of Oldfield singing lead vocal. The extended mix also appears on his compilation album The Platinum Collection.
In 1991 the song was re-released in France, and in 1993 it was featured on promos for Elements in France and Spain.
Maggie Reilly 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 (during the late 1980s), Pepsi Demacque (at the Tubular Bells III premiere and at the Live Then & Now '99 tour), Miriam Stockley (at the Millennium concert) and Rosa Cedrón (at Nokia Night of the Proms).
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.
An early version of the song was entitled "Midnight Passion" with vocals by British singer Hazel O'Connor.[3] 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.[4] According to Oldfield, Virgin Records were immediately happy with the song and wanted more pieces similar to it. Reilly also sang on "Foreign Affair" on Crises.
Oldfield later sampled the drums from "Moonlight Shadow" for the song "Man in the Rain" on his 1998 album, Tubular Bells III.[5]
It has been suggested that the lyrics of the song are a reference to the murder of John Lennon despite the fact that the events in the song do not correspond with those of Lennon's murder.[6][7] Lennon was shot four times just before 11pm, whereas in the song the time is 4am and the number of shots is six. When asked if Moonlight Shadow is a reference to John Lennon's murder in a 1995 interview, Oldfield responded:
Not really... well, perhaps, when I look back on it, maybe it was. I actually arrived in New York that awful evening when he was shot and I was staying at the Virgin Records house in Perry Street, which was just a few blocks down the road from the Dakota Building where it happened, so it probably sank into my subconscious. It was originally inspired by a film I loved - 'Houdini', starring Tony Curtis, which was about attempts to contact Houdini after he'd died, through spiritualism... it was originally a song influenced by that, but a lot of other things must have crept in there without me realizing it.
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) performed the second, overdriven half of the guitar solo, which is not the case. Also in the video is Oldfield's touring drummer, Pierre Moerlen, miming the part played by Simon Phillips on the recording.
The song performed particularly well in European charts, reaching number one in countries such as Norway, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
| Chart (1983) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Norwegian Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| Italian Singles Chart | 1 |
| Swedish Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| Dutch Singles Chart[8] | 2 |
| Eurochart Hot 100 | 1 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 1 |
| Swiss Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| South African Singles Chart | 7 |
| German Singles Chart | 2 |
| Spanish Singles Chart | 1 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 3 |
| French Singles Chart | 3 |
| Austrian Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| UK Singles Chart[9] | 4 |
| Belgian Singles Chart | 1 |
| Australian Singles Chart | 6 |
| Polish Singles Chart | 1 |
| Preceded by "Flashdance... What a Feeling" by Irene Cara |
Swiss Singles Chart number-one single 7 August 1983 – 14 August 1983 (2 weeks) |
Succeeded by "Vamos a la playa" by Righeira |
| Preceded by "Codo" by Tauchen Prokopetz |
Ö3 Austria Top 40 number-one single 15 August 1983 – 15 September 1983 (6 weeks) |
Succeeded by "Africa (Voodoo Master)" by Rose Laurens |
| Preceded by "Vamos a la playa" by Righeira |
Swiss Singles Chart number-one single 4 September 1983 – 11 September 1983 (2 weeks) |
Succeeded by "I Like Chopin" by Gazebo |
The song has been used in other media, such as:
Numerous cover versions of "Moonlight Shadow" have been performed over the years, including by Groove Coverage and The Shadows (a band whom Oldfield was influenced by) on their 1986 album Moonlight Shadows. Notably Oldfield had also covered a Shadows song, "Wonderful Land".
Other versions over the years have included:
Foreign language covers of "Moonlight Shadow" include:
Live covers of "Moonlight Shadow" include:
| "Moonlight Shadow" | ||||
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| Single by Groove Coverage | ||||
| from the album Covergirl | ||||
| Released | 2002 | |||
| Format | 12" single CD Single, Maxi |
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| Genre | Eurodance | |||
| Length | 2:52 | |||
| Label | Zeitgeist (Universal) Suprime:Music |
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| Groove Coverage singles chronology | ||||
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In 2002 a dance version of "Moonlight Shadow" by Groove Coverage reached the German Top 10 (simultaneously, a similar version of Oldfield's "To France" by Novaspace was in the German Top 30). "Moonlight Shadow" appeared on Groove Coverage's debut album, Covergirl. 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.
A-side
B-side
| Chart (2002) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| German Singles Chart | 3 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 5 |
| Europe Singles Chart | 12 |
| Australian Singles Chart | 39 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 52 |
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