The Present is the eleventh studio album by The Moody Blues, released in 1983. It is the second album of the Patrick Moraz era. It had three minor hit singles, "Blue World" (#62), "Sitting at the Wheel" (#27) and "Running Water". The album itself features strong compositions, but with a track order designed to capitalise on the legacy of the more successful Long Distance Voyager, with Justin Hayward's songs at the beginning and Ray Thomas' as finales.
The Present also became, in 1983, the first compact disc manufactured worldwide. In November 2008, the album was remastered and released on CD with two extra tracks.
The cover is a pastiche of Maxfield Parrish's famous painting Daybreak, with some subtle details: The crossed arms of the standing child is said to symbolise the Roman numeral "X", this being the Moody Blues' tenth album (with Lodge and Hayward).
Read more about The Present: Charts
Famous quotes containing the words The Present and/or present:
“The past is only the present become invisible and mute; and because it is invisible and mute, its memoried glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are tomorrow’s past.”
—Mary Webb (1881–1927)
“We see past time in a telescope and present time in a microscope. Hence the apparent enormities of the present.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)