"Moonlight Shadow" is a pop song written by British multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield and released as a single in May 1983 and included on the album Crises in the same year. The vocals were performed by the Scottish vocalist Maggie Reilly, who had joined Mike Oldfield in 1980. A 12" single (later reissued on a 3" CD single) featured an extended version of the song with an extra verse, which appears in his compilation album The Platinum Collection; and the single B-side was "Rite of Man" which was a rare instance of Oldfield singing lead vocal.
The single peaked at #4 in the British charts, making it Oldfield's second highest ranked single after "Portsmouth" which reached #3 in 1976. "Moonlight Shadow" was successful throughout Europe, spending four weeks at #2 in Germany, four weeks at #1 in Switzerland and six weeks at #1 in Norway. It also hit #6 in Australia. It was re-released as a maxi-CD single in 1993 to promote Oldfield's Elements box set.
An early version of the song was entitled "Midnight Passion" with vocals by Hazel O'Connor. Oldfield later sampled the drums from Moonlight Shadow for the song "Man in the Rain" on his 1998 album, Tubular Bells III.
Maggie Reilly sang "Moonlight Shadow" live when she toured with Oldfield in the 1980s. However since then, other singers have performed the song live with Oldfield including, Anita Hegerland and Miriam Stockley.
"Moonlight Shadow" is an award-winning novella by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto. The novella is included in most editions of Yoshimoto's novel Kitchen.
