"Painted Smile" is a 1981 song by the English progressive rock band The Moody Blues, first appearing on their 1981 album Long Distance Voyager. It was later released on the B-Side of "Gemini Dream."
Written by Ray Thomas, "Painted Smile" is the first in a suite of three songs that concludes the album. "Painted Smile" has a circus theme, and tells the story of a circus jester. Like many of Ray Thomas's earlier songs like "Another Morning" and "Floating", "Painted Smile" has a "child's world" theme in the sense that it tells the story in the perspective of a child.
After "Painted Smile," the suite continues into "Reflective Smile," which is a short spoken-word poem connecting the storylines from "Painted Smile" and "Veteran Cosmic Rocker." In the past, The Moody Blues had used spoken-word poetry on their albums which were usually written by drummer Graeme Edge, and were generally recited by either Edge himself or former keyboardist Mike Pinder. "Reflective Smile" is the only Moody Blues poem to have been written and recited by Ray Thomas.
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Famous quotes containing the words painted and/or smile:
“He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
They were all left behind on the beach.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“For slowly even her sense of him
And love itself were growing dim.
He no more drew the smile he sought.
The story is she died of thought.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)