“The Voice” by The Moody Blues

"The Voice" is Justin Hayward's song from the Moody Blues' 1981 album Long Distance Voyager, and it was one of the first things they cut for it, on 25 April 1980. Hayward called it a rhythm guitar song, and he carries most of it himself: acoustic and electric guitars, the lead vocal and nearly all the harmonies, with John Lodge and Ray Thomas joining on the refrain. He played the solo on a red 1963 Gibson ES-335, and he worked it up to a click track at home, and drummer Graeme Edge had no quarrel with that.

Pip Williams produced it, with Patrick Moraz adding the keyboard sweep, and the result is prog grandeur trimmed down to a driving pop single. It went out as the album's second single, topped Billboard's Top Rock Tracks for four weeks and climbed to 15 on the Hot 100.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.