The Moody Blues Album "Days of Future Passed" (Alternate 1967 Vinyl Mix)

The Moody Blues' album Days of Future Passed, released in 1967, is considered a psychadelic rock masterpiece, and it spawned two hit singles, Tuesday Afternoon (Forever?) and Nights in White Satin.

However, when the time came to release a CD version in 1972, the master tapes had deterioted to the point where only essential parts of the original album remained. This meant entire backing tracks had to be cut and altered to form the newer mix, along with other, artistic, changes.

CD Differences

 * Dawn Is A Feeling has a rougher, more sudden, transition from the orchestral interlude, and has less reverb on the bridges, to make them stand out from the verses and chorus.
 * The orchestral sections in Lunch Break (Peak Hour) go on for another 20 seconds before the song fades out.
 * In Tuesday Afternoon (Forever?), the Mellotron flute mixes better into the flute in the orchestral ending, making it sound like one flute is playing throughout.
 * Evening (Time To Get Away) has lost all the recorded backing vocals from the band, leaving John Lodge singing alone.
 * Also in Evening (Time To Get Away), the words "Evening, time to get away," are repeated twice before the song ends.  In the vinyl mix, they were repeated thrice.
 * Again in Evening, there is a Mellotron part that is lost on the bridges, though it is identical to the riff being played in the middle section.
 * The Sunset lost a piano part that played along with the string drones.
 * The Sunset also has a very different reverb on the words, "Through the night."
 * Twilight Time no longer has backing vocals that fade in and out at strategic points in the song; instead, the backing vocals are at a consistent volume throughout the song.
 * Nights in White Satin has a different intro; it was fixed to make in onstep with the orchestral interlude, rather than offstep in the original mix.  Also, the original mix featured a noise filter over the drums, giving it a more ghostly, ethereal sound, while the drums in the CD version are unfiltered, giving it a rawer sound.

Whereabouts
There's a rumor that the original tracks were never lost, but that internal issues and politics lead Plydor to create a new mix and claim the original tracks were too deterioated to use. This is supported by a CD floating around Polydor's studios around 2006, containing the vinyl mix, that was to be included in the 2006 SACD remix.

The compilation album Time Traveller contains an excellent quality version of Nights in White Satin's vinyl mix, supporting the idea that a good master still exists somewhere.