Before The Moody Blues recorded it, this was an obscure soul single for . Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller produced her recording, and it was written by her husband Larry Banks. It is a heart-rending song where the singer has just broken up with her lover, and can't bear to see him anymore. Bessie Banks had success with this song in America a year earlier. The Seattle singer was joined on the record by her husband who played piano on it as well as having written the song. It was written as a push to her career. However the major success on the part of the Moodies with the song, was not a boon to her career. She continued to work but never found the same success as she was reaching before the band recorded "Go Now."
Denny Laine recalled to Gibson.com how the band came to cover this song: "It came in one of these suitcases full of records from America. This guy, James Hamilton, he was a friend of B. Mitchel Reed, who was a DJ, and he would send this stuff across. So I picked that one out especially because Mike Pinder was a piano player. (chuckles) We'd always get the gig where the piano would be out of tune and we'd get the slow handclap because they were waiting to tune the piano… (laughs) Anyway, we did 'Go Now' because it was a song with a piano in it."
Denny Laine, whose pained vocals added so much to the single, left the band to set up his own Electric String Band in 1966. He later joined forces with Paul McCartney in Wings. The Moody Blues re-formed a short time later with new members Justin Hayward and John Lodge, who became the primary songwriters in the group.
is a live version by the Moody Blues in concert.
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