[Initially posted on 4.21.21]: My vocabulary isn’t sophisticated enough to describe the alternating tempos, sudden slowdowns and shifting rhythms in “Stop” (’66), a standout single from the Moody Blues and cowritten by Denny Laine and Justin Hayward. (Or was it Laine and Mike Pinder?)

The song reportedly reached #98 in the Billboard charts during April 1966 after getting lots of airplay on NYC AM rock radio (WABC, WNEW), and then it kind of slipped away.

Relatively unknown to even hardcore MB fans — i.e., the ones who only know them from the ’67 to early ’70s period of Days of Future Passed (“Nights in White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon”), In Search of the Lost Chord and On the Threshold of a Dream.

I know that a lot of breakthroughs happened in ’66, and this, in its own small way, was one of them.