"Moonlight Shadow" is a song written and performed by English multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, released as a single in May 1983 by Virgin Records, and included in the album Crises of the same year. The vocals were performed by Scottish vocalist Maggie Reilly, who had collaborated with Mike Oldfield since 1980. It is Oldfield's most successful single, reaching number one on a number of charts around Europe.

It has been suggested that the lyrics of the song are a reference to the murder of John Lennon despite the fact that the events in the song do not correspond with those of Lennon's murder. Lennon was shot four times just before 11 pm, whereas in the song the time is 4 am and the number of shots is six.

Also, the night Lennon was shot (8 December 1980) was a new moon, so there was no moonlight, and in the song, it is Saturday night while Lennon was killed on a Monday night. When asked if "Moonlight Shadow" is a reference to John Lennon's murder in a 1995 interview, Oldfield responded:

Not really... well, perhaps, when I look back on it, maybe it was. I actually arrived in New York that awful evening when he was shot and I was staying at the Virgin Records house in Perry Street, which was just a few blocks down the road from the Dakota Building where it happened, so it probably sank into my subconscious. It was originally inspired by a film I loved – Houdini, starring Tony Curtis, which was about attempts to contact Houdini after he'd died, through spiritualism... it was originally a song influenced by that, but a lot of other things must have crept in there without me realising it.

Lyrics

The last that ever she saw him

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

He passed on worried and warning

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Lost in a riddle that Saturday night

Far away on the other side

He was caught in the middle of a desperate fight

And she couldn't find how to push through

The trees that whisper in the evening

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Sing a song of sorrow and grieving

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

All she saw was a silhouette of a gun

Far away on the other side

He was shot six times by a man on the run

And she couldn't find how to push through

I stay, I pray

See you in Heaven far away

I stay, I pray

See you in Heaven one day

Four A.M. in the morning

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

I watched your vision forming

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

A star was glowing in the silvery night

Far away on the other side

Will you come to talk to me this night

But she couldn't find how to push through

I stay, I pray

See you in Heaven far away

I stay, I pray

See you in Heaven one day

Far away on the other side

Caught in the middle of a hundred and five

The night was heavy and the air was alive

But she couldn't find how to push through

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Carried away by a moonlight shadow

Far away on the other side