Seventh Sojourn is the eighth album by the Moody Blues, released in October 1972.

The album is a collection of songs without a conceptual theme, continuing the style of its two predecessors, A Question of Balance and Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

According to John Lodge, "The album was very loosely based on the idea of The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.

Remembers drummer Graeme Edge, "At the time of recording Seventh Sojourn, it was my least favourite album.

But years later, after coming to it with fresh ears and away from all of the pressures of that time, I realised that it was really rather good!

"[4] Ray Thomas recalls writing his longing love song "For My Lady": "That was really just after my divorce.

I was with my wife, and a couple of friends, and I have a baby grand piano in my drawing room in my house in England.

"[6] Pinder's "When You're a Free Man" is addressed to Timothy Leary, who befriended the band after the release of their song "Legend of a Mind".

"[7] Lodge wrote "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)" as a response to fans who mistakenly read guru-like wisdom into the group's lyrics.

I remember coming home from a tour of the US and when I got to my house I saw all these people camping out in the front yard.

I respected that young people at that time were looking for answers but like I said in the song, 'If you want the wind of change to blow about you/And you're the only other person to know, don't tell me/I'm just a singer in a rock and roll band.

Hayward reflects on the setting and the band's difficulty adjusting to their commercial success: "It was a ludicrous situation; we could afford to record anywhere in the world, and there we were in our keyboard player's garage.

Work on the album continued from February through September at Decca Studio 4 on Tollington Park in North London.

The album is notable for Mike Pinder's use of a new keyboard instrument, the Chamberlin, alongside his familiar Mellotron.

It worked on the same principle as the Mellotron, but had much better quality sounds – great brass, strings and cello and so on.

We needed to escape from our cocoon and get out and meet ordinary people once more to return our lives to something more recognisable as normality.

There were two bedrooms, some twenty individual TV's, sound systems everywhere and we had our own butler and our name written on the outside of the plane.

He remembers the process of designing the cover featuring a surrealistic landscape: "It is impossible for me to tell how long it took me to produce the illustrations other than to say that, in most cases, I had days rather than weeks to complete them and submit them for approval.

"[4] In April 2007 the album was remastered into SACD format and repackaged with four extra tracks.

"Island", the fourth bonus track, is an unfinished recording from 1973, made during the brief sessions for a follow-up album that never happened.

Whereas both singles from Seventh Sojourn made the top 40, "Nights In White Satin" bested both, hitting No.

2 in the United States and gaining the highest American chart position for a Moody Blues single.