For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme, Jim Adams’ has asked us to find a song by an artist or group that has a color in their name. The group I’m going with is the Moody Blues, but the song I’m going with, their earliest hit record, was recorded by a group that was the Moody Blues in name only, not the Moody Blues group that most people are familiar with. That song is “Go Now!”

Before Moody Blues band members Justin Hayward and John Lodge, who became the primary songwriters in the group, came along, the driving force behind the Moody Blues band was Denny Laine.

Laine played guitar and sang lead vocals on most of the band’s songs, including this one. When Laine first heard the Bessie Banks January 1964 recording of “Go Now,” written by Larry Banks (Bessie’s husband) and Milton Bennett, he immediately told the rest of the band that they needed to record the song. They did in November 1964 and it became the first and only “big hit” from the original Moody Blues, reaching number 1 in the UK Singles Chart and peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Without any hits after “Go Now,” Laine left the band to set up his own Electric String Band in 1966. He later joined forces with Paul McCartney in Wings. Enter Hayward and Lodge, and with three of the five original Moodies — Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas, and, Graeme Edge — emerged a new Moody Blues with elements of folk rock and psychedelic styles different from the band’s rhythm and blues focus under Laine.

With the new lineup, the Moody Blues continued to perform “Go Now!” for a short time, until they began writing their own material. The band realized that continuing to play rhythm and blues covers without Laine, whose voice had been well-suited to that style, was not working. Hayward stated that the band continued playing “Go Now!” after he and Lodge joined, with different members attempting lead vocal, but that it never sounded right, so they stopped performing it live.

Laine, on the other hand, continued to perform the song in concert during his years in Wings.

Here are the lyrics to “Go Now!”

We've already said "goodbye"
Since you gotta go, oh you'd better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Before you see me cry?

I don't want you to tell me just what you intend to do now
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin', darlin'
I'm still in love with you now
Whoa oh oh oh

We've already said "so long"
I don't want to see you go, oh you'd better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)

Don't you even try?
Tellin' me that you really don't want it to end this way
'Cause darlin', darlin', can't you see I want you to stay, yeah

Since you gotta go, oh you'd better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Before you see me cry
I don't want you to tell me just what you intend to do now
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin', darlin'
I'm still in love, still in love with you now
Ooh ooh ooh
I don't want to see you go but darlin', you better go now

Here is the Bessie Banks original recording:

And here is Denny Laine singing lead with Paul and Linda McCartney and Wings in 1976.