# Moody Blues Question

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moody-blues-question/60237
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 31, 2001, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moody-blues-question/60237 "2001-03-31T12:59:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2001, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moody-blues-question/60237/1 "2001-03-31T12:59:53Z")

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At the end of Nights in White Satin there is a section of poetry (which appears to be a continuation of the poem that starts the album). A couple of the lines are:

“Bedsitter people look back and lament,  
Another day’s useless energy spent.”

What are ‘bedsitter people’? Is this an English term?

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### Author: ![Jenericho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Jenericho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenericho)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2001, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moody-blues-question/60237/2 "2001-03-31T14:18:51Z")

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A “bedsit” is what you rent when you can’t afford an apartment. It consists of a single, small room that is meant to double as a bedroom/sitting room - if you’re lucky you might get a microwave or a gas ring to do your cooking. A bedsitter is, of course, someone who stays in a bedsit. (There was also a very surreal film about thirty years ago by Spike Milligan called “the Bedsittingroom”, which told the story of a man who was slowly becoming a bedsit. Not a bedsitter, a bedsit.)

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### Author: ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)
#### Post date: [March 31, 2001, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moody-blues-question/60237/3 "2001-03-31T16:57:13Z")

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I think “bedsitter” is a variant on “bedsit” rather than a term for the person who inhabits it.

It occurs to me that I haven’t heard the term in general conversation for years now: it might have been supplanted by “studio flat”, which is a similar thing.
