By the late sixties, American musician and composer Jeff Wayne already had a West End score on his resumé. A native of Queens, New York, Wayne relocated to London after working on his father’s musical version of Charles Dickens’s A Tale Of Two Cities. But his regular gig was composing music for TV commercials and shows. Using an old-fashioned Moviola (a professional film editing machine eventually rendered obsolete by the VCR then digital tech), he matched his compositions to the rhythm and flow of raw footage sent by ad agencies. Working on a new TV commercial for Lego in 1968, Wayne studied the film of the now ubiquitous plastic construction toy to compose a suitable tune.
“It was a very acoustic, near-Simon And Garfunkel melody,” he says of the playfully whimsical Bookends-style folk-pop tune that perfectly captures the zeitgeist of the era. Even now it sounds ideal for a children’s toy advert. But despite using the same tune, it’s a million miles from the ballad conveying tragedy wrought by a Martian invasion of Earth that eventually became Forever Autumn.
The Lego commercial soundtrack didn’t have lyrics. Session singers/songwriters Paul Vigrass and Gary Osbourne – who’d worked on ads with Wayne previously – simply hummed along in a style akin to the intro of Mrs Robinson. Proving incredibly popular, countless viewers contacted the company asking how they could buy the record – even though it was only a 30-second tune.
Article continues belowWith vocal skills and pinup good looks to match, Paul Vigrass subsequently joined soft rock/bubblegum pop band Edison Lighthouse. He appeared on their 1971 debut album Already which contained the proto-glam Bobby Sherman/Bay City Rollers-stylings of their UK No.1 hit single Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes). Despite that initial success, the band stopped short. Vigrass then reunited with Gary Osbourne – by then a solo singer – and in 1972 the duo released the album Queues, written and produced by Wayne.
Capitalising on the Lego commercial tune’s former popularity, they revisited it to include as a track on Queues and titled it Forever Autumn. Vigrass and Osbourne wrote the lyrics and Wayne expanded it into a full three-minute soft-rock orchestral number. More up-tempo than the eventual iteration included on Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds, it brought the guitar-picking melody to the fore.
“We added what became Forever Autumn to the Queues album because of the interest from the Lego ad,” says Wayne. “But the record label chose to put it out as a B-side.”
Looking for an outfit to emulate the recent and rapid success of Crosby, Stills & Nash, MCA decided they could profit from the folk-rock vibes of Queues. As such, winsome pop song and album opener Men Of Learning was selected as the A-side. But Marrakesh Express it wasn’t, and the single languished in the bottom reaches of the US chart. However, the Japan release was a different story.
“The same label in Japan flipped the A-and B-sides so Forever Autumn was released – and it got to number three,” Wayne says with a laugh. “It was a big hit. It even got Vigrass and Osbourne a tour of Japan.”
Recording sessions for Wayne’s classic 95-minute double album – which celebrates its 50th in 2028 – began in spring 1976. Forever Autumn was the only track not written specifically for the album. “I tried everything in my composing power not to include Forever Autumn on The War Of The Worlds,” says Wayne. “I wanted it to be one hundred per cent brand new.”
In the story of TWOTW, following the Martian invasion, the journalist (the narrator, played by Richard Burton) finally reaches the house where his fianceé and her father are staying. But they had already gone. Meaning that Forever Autumn, with its lyrical hook of ‘Now you’re not here’ fitted that part of the story perfectly. So Wayne reluctantly decided it was the best fit. In essence, it was too good not to use.
“I started to write something else, and I was coming up with some suitable music, but I couldn’t think of a better lyric,” he recalls. “I was doing battle with myself.”
Again, Wayne altered the arrangement and scoring to improve on the track’s suitability for TWOTW. He didn’t use Vigrass and Osbourne – although they sang backing harmonies elsewhere on the album. Osbourne (who at the same time worked on Elton John’s A Single Man) also contributed lyrics to the album.
Forever Autumn was placed just prior to the track Thunder Child, both as a song and storyline episode. In the TWOTW canon, it arrives shortly before what was the end of book one (The Coming Of The Martians) in HG Wells’s original 1898 novel – on which Wayne’s musical version was based. It’s a transitional section of Wells’s novel – written as a metaphor of Victorian colonialism and prejudice – where all hope seems lost for the future of humanity. Wayne relates that feeling of despair and melancholy via Forever Autumn with a theme that is recognised universally: heartbreak and loss. As such, he needed a recognisable vocal talent.
By the mid-70s, Justin Hayward was already well established as a singer-songwriter, having replaced Moody Blues founding member and frontman Denny Laine in 1966. Hayward (the writer of Nights In White Satin) loved Wayne’s music when he was first approached to perform the ‘sung thoughts of the journalist’.
“I felt very proud of the fact that he was willing to do it,” Wayne says of Hayward, who also performed on the album’s opening track The Eve Of The War. “I knew the right string orchestration accompanying Justin’s voice would be magic.”
Hayward’s soft-toned and lilting vocals also fulfilled Wayne’s conceptual musical vision.
“Whenever the story was more aggressive, it would be more electric. When it’s told through the eyes of humanity, like Forever Autumn, it’s more acoustic and string-oriented,” he explains. “But other than a forty-eight-piece string orchestra, everything else was the band or synths.”
Although The Eve Of The War was a more commercially successful single – including its multiple club remix versions – Forever Autumn has proved to have an enduring timeless longevity. An evergreen favourite, its touching poignancy is still beloved by both The War Of The Worlds and Moody Blues fans today. Hayward – who appeared on Top Of The Pops when Forever Autumn went Top 5 in 1978 – told an interviewer in 2000 that he regretted taking a fee (instead of royalties) for his performance. “I went all over the world with it,” said Hayward. “It was a hit all over the world.”
Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds Live! The Concert Experience tours the UK in October. Tickets are available now.
