gts172 “moodish”
Highlights of the work of John Lodge, not a founding member of The Moody Blues, but but an important piece of the machinery.
01-01 The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 101 – Procession (1971)
— meant to evoke the evolution of music, one of the band’s inspirations for this piece was the opening sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 1969 film “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Personally, love the harpsichord bit.
01-02 The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 102 – The Story In Your Eyes (1971)
— almost every Moody Blues tune fades/blends into the next song, this being a prime example of the folly of the arbitrariness of track division necessary to “digitize” an album for CD re-release. Like many songs tonight, there are a few more seconds of this song to be heard in the early part of the following tune, but the need to compartmentalize songs for “shuffle play” robs many tunes of their fullness. Buy the vinyl! Play the vinyl!
01-03 The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 201 – One More Time To Live (1971)
— the last of the cannonical “early Moody” albums to make it into my hands, had long mistooken [sic] the whimsical cover art for weakness, but it is truly a stunning album. Here, the 2nd side opens with a call-back to the S01T01 theme, but with a broader interpretation.
01-04 The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 204 – My Song (1971)
— remarkable, how very many of the lyrics here in this show (and others unplayed due to time constraint) still sound relevant a quarter of the way into a subsequent century. Dreamers but no fools, the Moodies seem to have understood that flower-power was bifurcating and one road led to the tragedy of Manson loonies and the Jimi/Janis/Jim early deaths, so the Moody Blues stood up to map out the alternate way forward.
02-01 The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn 104 – Isn’t Life Strange (1972)
— the coincidence mentioned in the previous mic-break was not solitary. Getting into gearing this show up, encountered a phenomenon which happens now and then, something me calls a “coincidence wave”. They don’t happen in three’s, despite superstition, but it’s fun when they come in “waves”… even though I recognize that notable coincidences happening near each other is, itself… coincidental.
Started on the day John Lodge died, in a dream some guy was talking to me about a new release of a 1975 Rolling Stones concert. I had no idea about it, but this unknown fellow was talking it up quite enthusiastically, and paused in his discourse for a conversational socially-expected response from me. Hadn’t heard the ‘new release’ but, thinking on my feet (which is easier to do in dreams than in real life), me figured that if it’s 1975, then there’s one song the Stones would certainly have played, so my response: “Hey Hey You You Get Offa My Cloud!” The guy nodded, smiled, a whole-hearted connection made.
Remembered that bit of dream vividly so it must’ve come just before waking up, then spent an hour at shat/shower/shave, and after getting going for the day, one of the first songs I heard on the radio was, yes, “Get Off My Cloud”.
That was days ago, there was another fun coincidence which I don’t recall now, but one I do: customarily skip across radio stations all day long, a rewarding habit in a city with a broadcast landscape far out-weighing demographics, and on 4 different radio stations that day, heard four different Bob Seger tunes.
Omigosh, right now sending out wishes for excellent health to Bob Seger, now 80 years of wise!
02-02 The Moody Blues – In Search Of The Lost Chord 101 – Departure (1968)
— one of the poetry bits the MB’s are famous for. Couldn’t include them all in this 2 hours, but have got a good sampling.
02-03 The Moody Blues – In Search Of The Lost Chord 102 – Ride My See-Saw (1968)
— obviously, this tune leads straight into “Legend Of A Mind” all about Timothy Leary. I remember when he did actually pass away, thankfully many years after 1968, and the tune was all over radio stations.
02-04 The Moody Blues – Days Of Future Passed 201 – Tuesday Afternoon (1967)
— difficult decision: play this whole album or none of it. Those are the rational options, because breaking it into parts betrays the album’s premise. Settled painfully on only this one, my favourite.
02-05 The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour 104 – Emily’s Song (1971)
— John Lodge is survived by two daughters, Emily, and… sorry, forget the other’s name. It starts with K, am quite certain of that. If only he had done a song about her too! Then again, Paul McCartney wrote a song about his dog Martha, and I can song that by heart, so maybe the problem is me, not Lodge. That embarrassment aside, it may surprise you to know that, across all their ouevre, this might be my favourite Moody Blues song of them all.
03-01 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 101 – Question (1970)
— after careful consideration, this is the finest Moody Blues album, when taken as its whole. There are only a few male vocalists who match me in pitch and range. Most of Billy Joel, some Neil Young, the Crosby parts of CSN, and… all of John Lodge. This song in particular, I can sing full-throat and spot-on.
03-02 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 102 – How Is It (We Are Here) (1970)
— and by playing an album side as a piece, we can see how all the songs fade/blend into each other. As intended.
03-03 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 103 – And The Tide Rushes In (1970)
— like with the Ringo tune on a Beatles album, you can always pick out the Ray Thomas song on a Moody Blues album.
03-04 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 104 – Don’t You Feel Small (1970)
— rock ‘n roll flute; one reason I like Genesis so much too.
03-05 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 105 – Tortoise And The Hare (1970)
04-01 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 201 – It’s Up To You (1970)
04-02 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 202 – Minstrel’s Song (1970)
04-03 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 203 – Dawning Is The Day (1970)
04-04 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 204 – Melancholy Man (1970)
— mastery of the mellotron, which later bandmate Patrick Moraz intitally resisted, but later fully embraced like a zealot.
04-05 The Moody Blues – A Question Of Balance 205 – The Balance (1970)
— now you know why, only a couple years later, the band had to tell fans “I’m Just A Singer” to discourage their own rising semi-mystical deification.
05-01 The Moody Blues – On The Threshold Of A Dream 101 – In The Beginning (1969)
— listen here, in the light of artificial “intelligence”.
05-02 The Moody Blues – On The Threshold Of A Dream 102 – Lovely To See You (1969)
— the Moodies released two albums in 1969, I only “re-knew” this lately, had it in mind that Seventh Sojourn was from 1975 or ’76. Now, even more remarkable that they did all this from only 67-72!
05-03 The Moody Blues – To Our Children’s Children’s Children 101 – Higher And Higher (1969)
— should be the quote of the night: “with the power of ten thousand butterfly sneezes”
05-04 Justin Hayward & John Lodge – Blue Jays 205 – When You Wake Up (1975)
— this dual-solo album carried a bunch of the momentum from what was supposed to be the Moody Blues’ eighth album.
05-05 John Lodge – Natural Avenue 102 – Natural Avenue (1977)
— have all of the members’ solo albums, and just like the Beatles after their breakup, all of them have a facet but none of them the full genius. However, this one is the brightest.
06-01 The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn 101 – Lost In A Lost World (1972)
— yet again, the lyrics of these albums from 50+ years ago all have re-emerging relevance. Substitute “social media” for “lost world”, you’ll see.
06-02 The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn 201 – You And Me (1972)
06-03 The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn 202 – The Land Of Make Believe (1972)
06-04 The Moody Blues – Seventh Sojourn 204 – I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band) (1972)
— translation: stop showing up at our homes seeking secret spiritual direction.