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Looking back with the Moody Blues

The New Neo Posted on by

The Moody Blues were big in the late 60s. But for reasons I never could quite articulate, their music creeped me out at the time. It didn’t make sense that I disliked their songs, because they had many elements I tend to enjoy: male singers, British, harmony. Nevertheless, I just didn’t like the sound or possibly it had to do with whatever else was going on with me at the time.

But I never connected the following song to them at all when I heard it on the radio when it came out about twenty years later. A few days ago I learned for the first time that it was by the Moody Blues, and it surprised me because it seems stylistically different from their famous 60s works. Anyway, although I’ve rarely thought of it in the intervening years, I like its bounciness combined with regret (a combination the Bee Gees often explored as well), conveying a common human experience of looking back and yearning:

Time passes – about thirty more years. The high notes are the first to go:

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

Comments

Looking back with the Moody Blues — 79 Comments

  1. This song came out in 1986 when I was in high school and was a big comeback hit for them.

    The Moody Blues had a real up and down career. Denny Laine was their original main vocalist but he left early on (and would later be in Wings and be a McCartney partner for years) and Justin Hayward and John Lodge joined the band and they were off.

    Their best known song ‘Nights In White Satin’ was actually recorded in ’68 but didn’t become a hit until 1972 and then after that it was a few hits mixed with long absences.

    There last hit a couple of years after ‘Your Wildest Dreams’ was ‘I Know You’re Out There Somewhere’ which I also like.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjImFYf2Vzc

    On a side not when I was a kid I though it was ‘Knights In White Satin’ because I thought ‘Nights In White Satin’ didn’t make sense. It should have been ‘On White Satin’ I thought.

    Not that ‘Knights In White Saitn’ made any sense either but I was a kid what can I say.

  2. Wow, you really hit a soft spot for me. The Moody Blues got me through high school and college. Listening to their albums (headphones!) took me to a calm place when I had some turmoil. To me, Justin Hayward is a genius songwriter.

    As to that song. It came out in my mid 30s when I was feeling the exact same emotions as in the song concerning my first love who I had lost contact.

    Today, I’ve learned many MB songs on the guitar. If I say so myself. I do a great job on Nights in White Satin, and Wildest Dreams.

    Neo, try listening to Threshold of a Dream. The CD is great as the continuity of the songs is not disrupted by having to flip the record over.

  4. Griffin:

    If it’s any consolation, when “Nights In White Satin” came out, I thought it was “Knights” as well.

  5. “Nights In White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon” were both released in the late 1960’s and that’s when I heard them. They both made my flesh crawl, and I dislike them to this day. As I said in the post, I can’t exactly explain. It’s certainly not a reaction I usually have to music, and I know they’re very popular and highly-admired songs. Those late-1960s years were difficult ones for me, and perhaps that’s part of it, but it’s not like I feel that way about other songs from that time.

  6. neo,

    Well ‘Tuesday Afternoon’ is very trippy in a ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ (which I’m not a big fan of) way. Maybe it’s because I never did drugs I don’t know. It’s a great song to listen to with really good headphones on though.

  7. Sorry, but the cited lyrics start off well but degenerate into nonsense.
    It’s too bad Neo the ballet-committed ignores on her site the classical music on which ballet is based.

  8. I have loved The Moody Blues since I first heard “Nights in White Satin” as a preteen. The band, at least in the US, had a couple of comebacks in the 1980s- the big one, though, was in 1981 with the album “Long Distance Voyager”, which spent 6 weeks at the top of the album charts.

    “Days of Future Passed”, which includes “Nights in White Satin” and the even better “Tuesday Afternoon” is an album everyone interested in rock and roll should own.

  9. I rather liked some of the Moody Blues songs – Wildest Dreams is one of their best, and I can grok the looking back and wondering.
    I have a terribly eccentric memory of pop music. For twenty years, I worked on and off as a radio DJ for Armed Forces Radio. So many of the pop hits are liked to the place that I was stationed at, and the shift that I was working. Things like Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” are tagged to the broadcaster tech school, early in 1978. Anything from Supertramp “Breakfast in America” slots into doing the early morning oldies show on a Saturday morning at FEN Misawa, as the album countdown show aired just before my show. The Cure “Just Like Heaven” – midday drive time at EBS-Zaragoza.
    So it goes.

  10. Cicero:

    I’m really really really tired of hearing you make the same claim about my ignoring classical music. You are incorrect, among other things. Several times I have taken the trouble to reply to you by listing the many posts I’ve written about classical music. To the best of my recollection, you have neither replied nor acknowledged them. I’m not wasting my time on pointing out all those classical music posts of mine to you anymore.

    However, I must say that your remark about the “quoted lyrics” “degenerating “into nonsense” is amusing. I guess you didn’t follow the link on the words “an aged man is,” but had you done so you would have seen they are not lyrics but rather some lines from one of William Butler Yeats’ most well-known poems, “Sailing to Byzantium.” It’s always a good idea to click on the link of something you’re about to criticize, so you know what you’re criticizing.

    Here’s the entire poem. Perhaps you think it’s nonsense, but I think it’s brilliant:

    That is no country for old men. The young
    In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
    —Those dying generations—at their song,
    The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
    Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
    Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
    Caught in that sensual music all neglect
    Monuments of unageing intellect.

    II

    An aged man is but a paltry thing,
    A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
    Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
    For every tatter in its mortal dress,
    Nor is there singing school but studying
    Monuments of its own magnificence;
    And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
    To the holy city of Byzantium.

    III

    O sages standing in God’s holy fire
    As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
    Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
    And be the singing-masters of my soul.
    Consume my heart away; sick with desire
    And fastened to a dying animal
    It knows not what it is; and gather me
    Into the artifice of eternity.

    IV

    Once out of nature I shall never take
    My bodily form from any natural thing,
    But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
    Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
    To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
    Or set upon a golden bough to sing
    To lords and ladies of Byzantium
    Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

  11. I loved the Moody Blues early on. They were prog rock before there was prog rock.

    Growing up in a classical music household, I was knocked out by their first album, “Days of Future Past,” which was the first successful rock-classical fusion. It’s still one of the best of that rather tiny subgenre.

    Weirdly, it was intended to be a version of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” with a symphony orchestra and the band, to show off new audiophile recording techniques and to help the Moodies pay off money owed to Decca, the record company.

    Happily, the conductor, Peter Knight, and the Moodies scrapped the Dvorak concept and did something original. It turned out great. Its success set the band on their independent prog path.

    The next album, “In Search of the Lost Chord,” was their most explicitly psychedelic, including the notorious song lyric, “Timothy Leary’s dead/No, no, no, he’s on the outside looking in.” I loved that album too.

    Another thing I loved was that the Moodies always loved their fans back. They never got too big to please their fans. They will never lack for gigs as long as they are alive and want to play.

  12. Cicero,

    LOL. The cited lyrics as you called them are not from the song they are from a poem by Yeats.

  14. that was probably the first single I saw from them, I probably had heard ‘white satin’ before but I didn’t associate with the band,

  15. Huxley,

    Well the internet tells me (and we know it never lies) Hayward wrote it about a girlfriend who had given him white satin sheets as a gift so it would be odd if he wrote a song about Knights from that point. Lol.

    But then shouldn’t it be ‘Nights On White Satin’?

    Who knows but the performances of it with the full orchestra are really great. Similar to ‘Whiter Shade Of Pale’ in that way. Good stuff.

  16. Growing up in the 60’s-70’s I was quite familiar with the Moody’s hits and some deeper tracks. I suspect Neo doesn’t connect because the band was highly lysergic-influenced at the time. Ride My See-Saw anyone? I was familiar with Nights in White Satin from the time it was originally released in 1968 and found its re-release and subsequent success in 1972 rather puzzling. Something similar happened with Dream On by Aerosmith.

    As an older person in the 80’s I had very limited contact with the popular music of the time, and I had never even heard of Your Wildest Dreams until this post.

  17. Hayward wrote it about a girlfriend who had given him white satin sheets

    Griffin:

    I heard that too, but always wondered.

    The band portrait on the back of “In Search of the Lost Chord” shows Hayward in a cropped shirt exposing his belly button with his hands on jutted hips posing rather like a woman in a bathing suit.

    https://vinyldistractions.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/IMG_8870.jpeg

    I assumed he was gay. Not that I care.

    Wiki tells me that he married a woman and has a daughter, which I’m sure is true. Who knows.

    Although maybe that was John Lodge. They looked similar in that shot.

  18. I suspect Neo doesn’t connect because the band was highly lysergic-influenced at the time.

    Marisa:

    I had that thought too.

    One can line up the Moody Blues with the Bee Gees in musical terms, but the Moodies, once they had “:Days of Future Past” under their belts, were a blatantly psychedelic band for several albums.

  19. My brother went to hear Timothy Leary speak a few decades ago and he told me that Leary’s intro music was the Moody’s song “Legend of a Mind”.
    Timothy Leary’s dead
    no, no, no, no he’s outside looking in

  20. huxley; Marisa:

    Actually, I liked plenty of that sort of music in the 60s. Still like quite a bit of it.

  22. Lodge has spoken on several occasions about being an Evangelical Christian, and credits his faith with preventing him from sinking into the more dangerous elements of the rock music business.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lodge_(musician)

    I did not know that.

    Seems likely John Lodge was not posing, belly button out, on “In Search of the Lost Chord.”

    Speaking of belly buttons, a funny thing about that album cover art, which I noticed during my “In Search of Subliminal Messages” period, was that the fetus on the right side of the album painting had its umbilical chord leading to the “CH” in “CHORD” of the psychedelic lettering of the album title:

    https://i0.wp.com/first-draft.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/51073824457_2c67a5b510_z.jpg

    Clever!

  23. Just announced:THE WHITE HOUSE AND McCARTHY HAVE AN AGREEMENT!

    Details to be revealed by McCarthy in ten minutes, and it still has to be drafted, passed by both houses, and signed by Biden. But we are a step closer to a debt ceiling agreement.

  26. I can still hit the notes, but I have to practice some to do it right. But I’m 62, and no doubt 15 years younger. No shame; Elton has a backup to hit the high notes for him.

    I never cared that much for their earlier stuff, although I recognized that White Satin was significant. Like a lot of prog rock, it just struck me as pretentious. But Wildest Dreams didn’t hit me right away, either. I needed to be 40 or so, and then it was right on target.

  27. In 2016, when I left San Francisco for New Mexico, I listened to “Days of Future Passed” everyday for six months.

    I didn’t know why. It just seemed the right thing to do.

    Looking back, I think I was resetting myself to the age of 16 to pick up where I was at that age, as I was entering my retirement. That’s basically what I’ve been doing, foolishly or not, for the past six years.

    “Days of Future Passed” and later Moody albums persistently ask the question of what is truly important in one’s all too brief life.

    What answers are you exploring?

  28. I got ‘Days of Future Past’ when I was a senior in HS. I had gone from an extremely happy person in a happy situation to a very unhappy person in an unhappy situation. I looked to “Better Living Through Chemistry” and was self-destructing. It fit my mood at the time. I only had four or five albums. One was ‘Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits’.

    “Kathy I’m lost I said though I knew she was sleeping
    I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why”

    Another was ‘Rubber Soul’

    “All the lonely people
    Where do they all come from”

    Somewhere along the line, I self-destructed clear through the looking glass and started down a path that ended with me having lunch with the Challenger Seven.

  31. For those really interested in some of Hayward and Lodge’s more creative adventures, there is a little known album / CD by the ” Bluejays ” . Of all the great Moody Blue’s music, this effort is easily my favorite, with the London Philharmonic backing them up on most songs.
    ” Nights-Winters-Years ” is truly a masterful blend of lyrics and a dramatic symphony crescendo that still makes me tingle after all these years.

  32. huxley:

    I had a feeling someone was going to ask me that question 🙂 . My answer is that I liked the really popular “psychedelic” stuff, in particular Jefferson Airplane’s “Surrealistic Pillow” and most of the output of The Doors. Also of course some of the Beatles’ later works that could be classified that way. I liked some Byrds, and I was quite fond of Donovan. I’ve actually heard some people classify some of the Hollies’ and Kinks’ songs that way, although I’ve never thought of it as such. But at any rate, I was keen on both groups.

    Never liked the Who much, nor the Moody Blues or Procol Harum, and not keen on the Grateful Dead although I liked some of their songs. I’m probably leaving someone out, but that’s what I remember at this point.

  34. My favorite Moody Blues song is whichever one I’m listening to at the time.

  36. dejake,

    Great choice of a song I haven’t listen to in quite awhile.

    And windbag…yes.

    Neo: how about In-a-Gadda-da-vida? Given your general tastes I suspect no. To me it was breaking ground into psychedelic, progressive, fusion (heavy amounts of classical influence), and metal. All rolled into one piece. It was Iron Butterfly’s one and done, but boy what a one. I also note how one of the great bands ever riffed off of IB’s name to become Led Zepplin.

  37. Snow on Pine,

    It’s been argued here before, and my stance has been since THC is not metabolized by the liver but attaches itself to fatty layers in the brain, its effects can be much more long term. Where liver metabolized substances can have bio half lives in the order of hours, THC has a bio half life in days. Continue ingestion just results in the THC never leaving. The study in not surprising.

  38. To my surprise, I recognize and liked “In Your Wildest Dreams.” I always loved the Moody Blues because I like their voices.

  40. physicsguy–As with many other public policy decisions these days, the decision by many states to legalize marijuana is insane.

    Why add another intoxicant–one whose long term (and likely permanent) effects–especially on the young–are increasingly being found to be very harmful–to the alcohol that is already allowed, and a “gateway drug” at that.

    Don’t they already have enough “impaired” drivers on the streets causing havoc, enough wigged out people “acting out” on the streets, and crowding emergency rooms?

    It appears that these state legislators who OKd marijuana want more problems, and more intense ones than the many fairly intractable problems they already have to deal with.

    I can only believe that some legislators were too stupid to see through pro-marijuana propaganda–a “harmless,” in fact, a beneficial substance, plus “freedom” don’t ya know–and, in addition, that there was also a lot of bribery going on, and they saw a supposed tax bonanza in their futures.

  41. P.S.–Perhaps I am naive, but I thought that one of the primary jobs of public policy–properly run–was to protect the public from obvious dangers; to make it harder for idiots to harm themselves, to harm others, and to harm the population in general.

    It appears that that idea is now passe.

  42. Like huxley and Marisa, I supposed that Neo’s dislike of the Moodys had to do with the psychedelic-ness of much of their stuff. But in that case it would be odd to pick out Tuesday and Nights as especially creepy, as they really aren’t very trippy at all.

    I felt that way about Led Zeppelin, but I knew why. I remember a girl I knew at the time describing them as “insect music” and I knew what she meant.

    I was never a huge Moody Blues fan at the time–too polished and grandiose and kind of pretentious–though I liked some individual songs, for instance Voices In the Sky:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iO9pcD4q50

    Not that trippy, but the album as a whole is, too much so.

    I liked the nostalgic appeal of Wildest Dreams, too, when it appeared, rather surprisingly, on the radio in the ’80s. It spoke to my condition.

  43. Having watched the decline of the expected level of scholastic accomplishment in our high schools and colleges for nearly 50 years now I can make a comparison that you might find interesting.

    The Moody Blues language starts out as if it fits into a memorized basic formula, but then when their attention span (skill sets) lag (drugs or an absence of focus) they fill in the blank time with pieces and parts of something they may have been thinking about, but who the heck knows?! It’s an exact reflection of how the English language, writing, composition, great writers, etc. is taught in our schools today. It’s like looking at some stoned out sophomore looking at herself in a mirror!

  44. Neo-
    You chose today’s topic, and it is clear from comments that The Moodys were into LSD. I just would not put up with that, not even give them mention.
    As to WB Yeats, they stole his lines! And just because he is Yeats does not mean we should suspend judgment.
    As to your invocation of classical music, Neo, I usually see what’s up on your site, make a comment, and leave. I do not note your rebuttals, sorry. How about bluegrass? The Stanley Brothers! Or Bill Monroe!

  45. Cicero,

    They didn’t steal Yeats’ lines which you would know if you had listened to the song. Those are not the lyrics.

    Neo used the poem as a way of commenting on the aged singer’s loss of vocal range compared to the original recording.

    If you don’t like it fine but at least get your facts straight before criticizing it.

  46. I’ve written it before: when you visit a pot store and 1/3 of the customers are men, 1/3 are 20-something gals who want to get frisky, and 1/3 are 40-something gals who want relief from anxiety, legalization is inevitable. But a large part of the market is still served by illegal means. The taxes make that lucrative.

    Minnesota is the latest, with the stunningly smug Democrat one-vote majority giggling over this and also over cranking up the baseline spending by 40 percent. Hint to the Dems: when the political commentators who have leaned your way for decades preach caution, listen.

    Ah, well. Republican legislators are stupid, too.

  47. “not keen on the Grateful Dead”

    Q. What does a Deadhead say after you cut off his drugs for a week?

    A. Boy does this band suck!

    Been there, done that.

  48. I never owned any Moody Blues, but in college I shared a suite with 3 other guys for a year and all of us were serious rock/pop fans. And our tastes were complementary rather than similar. So we had a collection of 600+ albums that covered most everything. The Mood Blues was regularly on the playlist.
    ______

    And here I thought that “No country for old men” was something that Cormac McCarthy dreamt up.
    ______

    In 2016, when I left San Francisco for New Mexico, I listened to “Days of Future Passed” everyday for six months.

    Looking back, I think I was resetting myself to the age of 16 to pick up where I was at that age, as I was entering my retirement. That’s basically what I’ve been doing, foolishly or not, for the past six years.

    Wow. Interesting album choice. I go for energy. I recently picked up a best of Van Halen set. A local band does a cover of their version of Pretty Woman, but their version of Dancing In The Streets is really unique and energetic.

  49. Snow on Pine, yes, One of the primary jobs of public policy is to protect the public from obvious dangers. But The primary job is to protect the rights of the public, including their right to do dumb things. Absolutely educate the public about the dangers involved and prosecute those who harm others. But that’s about as far as I think the State should be allowed to go.
    Cicero, I certainly hope the Moodys were into LSD. I was and I loved their music.

  50. I liked their music. You could hear it on the radio, but it was different from the usual Top 40. “Symphonic Rock” (Procol Harum, Yes, ELP, ELO) is a label that might fit here. They were able to do different … do you call them “tempi”? … very well. Slow and lingering in “White Satin,” impusive and driving in “I’m Just a Singer,” bouncy and upbeat in “Wildest Dream.” And you can see in the tune, the singer’s intonation, and the video that they were trying for something early ’60s in the “Wildest Dream,” something different than their other music, which was more late ’60s-early ’70s.

    We had that Yeats poem in our home library when I was growing up. It meant nothing to me. What did a city that had fallen half a millennium before have to do with anything, and why did the poet go there? What was lapus lazuli and what was that doing in the poem? But now, with age, I understand it better.

  52. Griffin-
    I listen to jazz, bluegrass and classical.That’s it. I might listen to Moody and other popular stuff if you paid me!

  53. Cicero:

    Once again, let me remind you that it’s a good idea to do your homework before you criticize a strawman of your own devising.

  54. …shouldn’t it be ‘Nights On White Satin’?

    Not if you’re sleeping with a top and bottom sheet.
    Get your mind out of the gutter! 🙂

  55. Criticizing people’s musical tastes is petty and pointless. That’s why we have umpteen different genres of music. Just like ice cream, some people like vanilla and some people like rocky road. It’s whatever your tastes are. Except for rap. Music is like candy…you gotta throw away the rappers.

  56. I posted a musical note here for huxley, although not a Moody one.

    AesopFan:

    Thanks. That took a little tracking down.

    And welcome back!

  57. Ahh. Cicero is one of those musical snobs that I’ve run into before. So secure in their taste superiority of classical, jazz, and bluegrass. Funny. I enjoy those also, especially classical and jazz. I also happen to really enjoy Daydream Believer by The Monkees. Heaven forbid!!

  58. Wow. Interesting album choice. I go for energy.

    TommyJay:

    “Days of Future Passed” wasn’t all I listened to. I have a lot of energy music as well. (You can’t attend Tony Robbins events without acquiring such a collection.)
    ___________________________

    Remember, it’s the wand which chooses the wizard, not the other way around,

    –First Book of Potter
    ___________________________

    Sometimes in my life I feel like I’ve wandered into a tractor beam and am being pulled towards something. Like that Moody Blues album.

    Or, lately, French. I’ve now been studying it for five months straight, every day for 1-6 hours. I can tell you a story about ye-ye music, but that doesn’t explain, to me anyway, the intensity I feel for French.

    If such promptings are constructive or creative, I go with them.

  59. huxley:

    For me of course it’s the Bee Gees. I am now an expert.

    And it’s easier than learning French.

  60. RE: Earlier discussions about Japan’s demographic death spiral.

    As a measure of just how bad the population decline is in Japan, at the present time there are apparently about 10 million abandoned houses (Akiya)–some with land–being made available to buyers by the Japanese government a no or little cost; and, according to reports, these Akiya account for an estimated 15% of Japan’s entire housing stock.

    Akiya are mostly in the countryside, in pretty remote areas, are quite often in pretty bad shape and, as traditional Japanese wooden houses, they usually lack both central heating and air conditioning; traditional wooden Japanese houses have a reputation for quite often being both drafty and cold.

    Moreover, if you were interested in obtaining one of these free or very low cost Akiya, as a foreigner you would have to navigate Japanese governmental bureaucracy, the Japanese real estate market, and the language barrier; it sure would make things a lot easier if you could read and speak Japanese.

    There are official government lists of some of these Akiya, but advice on Youtube from a foreigner who did manage to acquire one of these Akiya points out that given Japan’s very tight-knit (not to say clannish) society, and especially that society in a rural area, the best way to get one of these Akiya is to find an area you want to live in, to move into the area for a while, to interact with and get to know the locals (who want to have social veto power over who buys the Akiya in their neighborhood) and–if you pass muster–they will point you to Akiya for sale before they ever get on the official government lists, which are apparently not anywhere near comprehensive and complete.

    So, if living in and rehabbing (to keep costs down it helps to be very able-bodied, and to have a lot of carpentry, plumbing, electric, and general building skills) such a traditional wooden house in the remote Japanese countryside has romantic appeal–and as long as you realize that you are very unlikely to ever make a profit on the deal–perhaps such an Akiya is for you.

  61. For me of course it’s the Bee Gees.

    neo:

    I could tell and more power to you!
    __________________________

    Here’s a theory for you to completely disregard. Music, you know, true music – not just rock n roll – it chooses you. It lives in your car, or alone listening to your headphones, you know, with the vast scenic bridges and angelic choirs in your brain.

    –Lester Bangs (as played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Almost Famous”)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mC9WmXPqEY

  62. Lots of interesting comments on this one. I never voluntarily listened to the Moody Blues that I can recall. But the little discussion about “Sailing to Byzantium” was interesting. The bit about the gold mosaic is clearly a pointer to the holy icons in their mosaic form, so that was nice.

    Snow on Pine, that’s interesting about the akiya. It would be scary if Japan were to depopulate to such an extent that those come to make up a really large proportion of the housing stock, as that could mean that at some point, somebody else from that part of the world – obvious candidates come to mind – would be tempted to move in without necessarily asking leave. And the Bee headline is cute, too.

  63. If you know the MB by a few of the popular songs in “Days of Future Passed, you’re missing much of what the MB are about.

    Yes some/much of their music were cosmic/philosophical themes, and their harmonies and orchestral/mellotron music might appear over the top, but they struck a cord with a huge base of fans.

    Here’s a great song from “Our Children’s, Children’s Children”:
    Candle of Life
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ts3L4pN-M4

    Here’s three songs from “In Search of the Lost Chord”, one of my favorite albums. If you like these, try the entire album.

    “Never Comes The Day”- ” Lazy Day”- “Are You Sitting Comfortably?”- W/Lyrics- Moody Blues
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8BNMfyoxgs

    Like most popular groups, they used LSD for a time– all except John Lodge, and someone alluded him to being a Christian– and some of their songs reference Christian themes.

    The music changed when Mike Pinder, their keyboardist and arranger, left the group after the eighth album, “Octave” in 1978. He was living in southern California, and didn’t want to tour. There was also tension between Pinder and the drummer, Graham Edge.

    Hayward did have a daughter, Doremi (I know it was the 60’s) who went to college at either USC or UCLA.

    The Moody Blues were big in the 60’s and 70’s. They took a break around 1973 after making 7 albums.

  64. Here’s a nice sampler of music from five of the essential seven albums.

    The Mighty Moody Blues – 10 Favorite Album Tracks
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-1B7Bd-KUw

    1. (0:00) Candle of life. Rated (To Our Children’s Children, 1969)
    2. (4:12) The story in your eyes. (Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, 1971)
    3. (7:15) And the tide rushes in. (A Question of Balance, 1970)
    4. (10:16) You can never go home. (Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, 1971)
    5. Removed due to “content ID claim” (sorry)
    Out and in. (To our Children’s Children, 1969)
    6. (14:35) The Actor. (In Search of the Lost Chord, 1968)
    7. (19:15) The land of make-believe. (Seventh Sojourn, 1972)
    8. (24:10) Isn’t life strange? (Seventh Sojourn, 1972)
    9. (30:16) King and Queen. (Caught Live Plus 5, 1977) (*Song recorded 1968)
    10. (34:10) Nights in white satin. (Days of Future Passed, 1967)

  67. I like the Moodies some, and most prog rock like Yes. But even more the groups Neo noted, especially the Doors.

    Then I really liked punk rock, sort of a get-back-to-basics anti-prog rock reaction, especially the Ramones.

    I’m enjoying karaoke – easier than learning French, or piano or guitar. “White Rabbit” can be sung in baritone and be OK.

    On my K-list for this upcoming week is Neon Indian’s “Polish Girl”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuPGZZgNFsU
    That’s a girl from Poland, not one to polish shoes – a homograph; but the mix has the vocals a bit too low for the cool electronic music.

    My high notes were never good, now they’re gone – no falsetto at all anymore. Strange, it just disappeared.

  68. “But for reasons I never could quite articulate, their music creeped me out at the time.”
    It’s right there in the name, “Moody Blues.”

  69. Brian E at 11:39pm, correction: I think you mean Threshold of a Dream, not Lost Chord. Threshold is also my favorite MB album which is why I recommended it way at the top of the thread.

    Pinder leaving the band was a bit of a blow, but the song writing power of Hayward and Lodge made up for it. I think Patrick Moratz, Pinder’s replacement, is good though doesn’t contribute to the songwriting as Pinder did.

    BTW, the BR of their 1994 Hollywood Bowl concert, aptly titled “Are you Sitting Comfortably” is quite good. With the death of Ray Thomas, they replaced him with Nora Mullens who does a really great job. Also, having a women in the vocal mix fills in those missing high notes that Neo alluded to.

  70. If you ever make it to Japan you might want to stay at one of Japan’s many hot spring Spa hotels.

    I stumbled across this particular one called Nishiyama Keiunkan Onsen, located in Yamanashi province, west of Tokyo in the South Japanese Alps.

    What intrigued me about this particular traditional Japanese Inn or Ryokan is that it claims to be the world’s longest operating Inn, having been opened in 705 A.D., and owned and operated by the same family for 52 generations.

    Now that’s focus and longevity!

    See https://www.keiunkan.co.jp/en/

  73. Re: Michael Pinder

    His Mellotron work on “Tuesday Afternoon” made the song for me.

    Pinder introduced John Lennon to the Mellotron and Lennon used the Mellotron on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Voila! The two greatest Mellotron songs I can think of.

    Pinder wasn’t a main songwriter for the Moodies, but when he took a turn at bat, he did good

    I was disappointed when he left the band.

  74. My favorite Eno ambient piece is:

    –Brian Eno, “Thursday Afternoon”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKrNElpk5OM

    It’s ambient, so it doesn’t have any hooks or melodies or drum solos, just … a timeless mood. The video is a perfect accompaniment — time-lapse footage of clouds. I totally love it.

    I wonder if Eno thought of “Tuesday Afternoon” when he wrote this piece. I wonder if he titled it “Thursday Afternoon” because “Tuesday Afternoon” was already taken.

  76. Maybe the mellotron creeped you out? It’s what I liked best about their music, followed closely by their harmonies.

    I saw them four times, but lost track after Seventh Sojourn.

  77. Mutatis:

    I don’t think it was that. The best I can describe it is that I find those two songs droningly monotonous in a way that sets my teeth on edge.

    I also don’t like Ravel’s Bolero for similar reasons, but I don’t hate it and don’t find it creepy. I just find it monotonous.

    Of course, I like some monotonous songs, such as “Sweet Dreams.” So, go figure.

  78. Snow on Pine or anyone interested, here’s a website dedicated to akiya – http://www.akiyainaka.com. The guys who run this – for a fee – will run interference for those willing and able to make the leap of landing a place in Japan.

    And, yes, that ancient ryokan you mention above is on my bucket list.

    I like Moody Blues ‘Question’ –
    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=question+moody+bliues&view=detail&mid=7C12F7B085CE459098827C12F7B085CE45909882&FORM=VIRE

  79. Michael Paul Kennedy, an author, was in the UK’s Army, from the 1960s, 1970s, + 1980s, I guess.

    He said something like: in the 1960s + 1970s, he + the cool soldiers liked to listen to:

    Jimi Hendrix (sp?), The Rolling Stones, + The Beatles.

    Michael Paul Kennedy wrote a memoir book, About his basic training + service, in the UK Army’s Special Forces unit- The Special Air Service.

    His book is titled- “Soldier ‘I’: The story of an SAS Hero” by Michael Paul Kennedy.

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