Moody Blues – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Moody Blues – Story in Your Eyes

Great melody in this song. One of the best rock songs of its era. I bought the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour when I heard this song from Columbia House. I would say that this song made me a Moody Blues Fan. The Moody Blues are sometimes described as a progressive band, but unlike some progressive bands, they kept a good pop/rock sensibility…some have called them an “Art”rock band which fits much better to me. And…the bass in this song is great.

If you were stuck on the orchestral sounds of Days of Future Passed, The Story in Your Eyes might have caught you off guard…in the best way possible. The song was released in 1971 as the lead single from Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, this Justin Hayward-written song is one of the Moody Blues’ most energetic, guitar-driven tracks, proving they could rock with their harder peers.

The album title, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour comes from a mnemonic phrase used to remember the notes on the lines of the treble clef. E, G, B, D, F, (Every Good Boy Does Fine) from bottom to top.

The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100, and #7 in Canada, in 1971.

Justin Hayward: “Despite its personal nature, ‘The Story in Your Eyes’ is also kind of about the band, We’re part of the fire that is burning, and from the ashes we can build another day.” “There’s a kind of confession in it, as we were soon about to go through a rather awkward phase.”

Justin Hayward: “The song just sprung out of my acoustic guitar one day while I was at home. I was just playing my Martin D-28…I don’t know for certain if it’s from ’55 or ’57, but it’s been with me since 1969 and the first thing that came to me was the middle-eight section. And from there, the rest of the song came together.”

“Only a couple of weeks before entering the studio, I had done a version of it with Mike (keyboardist Mike Pinder) at his place, with just me playing the guitar and him working out the piano part for the outro. Mike then did eight or 12 tracks of Mellotron, bouncing from one machine to another. And it only sounded good when he had done it and multitracked it.”

“When it came time for the electric guitar part, I used a Cherry Red 1963 [Gibson] ES-335 that I’ve had since 1968. The electric guitar that opens the song including feedback that’s in tune to an A note…and goes all the way through the song is the ES-335 direct into the Normal chan

nel of an AC30 Top Boost turned up full. In the solo and at the end, that’s the ES-335 again through a Marshall Reverb-Fuzz Unit.”

Story in Your Eyes

I’ve been thinking about our fortune
And I’ve decided that we’re really not to blame
For the love that’s deep inside us now, is still the same
And the sound we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It’s been shining down upon you now, I realize

Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We are part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day
But I’m frightened for your children
And the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we’ve been waiting for
Will turn to rain

When the final line is over
And it’s certain that the curtain’s gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet sweet love
Forever more

Moody Blues – Go Now

I have always liked the song because it’s such a timeless song. This was before Justin Hayward and John Lodge joined the band.

The singer was Denny Laine who quit the Moodies in 1966 and was replaced by Justin Hayward. The Moody Blues started to open up for the Beatles in 1965. The two bands got close and Paul McCartney was a big fan of this song released the year earlier. Laine later ended up playing with Paul McCartney and Wings until 1980. During the 1976 Wings tour Paul stepped aside so Denny could sing this song.

What a mood this song creates. This was before the Moody Blues went searching for the lost chord…or evolved into an Art Rock type of band. They were just a beat group at this stage but the song’s arrangement pointed to a different direction. I would safely say this song was the most important one of their career because it broke them internationally. Without this song who knows what would have happened to them?

Ray Thomas and Justin Hayward tried singing it a few times live but as their music changed they dropped the song. The lineup that did this song was Graeme Edge (drums, backing vocals), Denny Laine (lead vocals, guitar), Mike Pinder (piano, backing vocals), Ray Thomas (backing vocals), Clint Warwick (bass, backing vocals). It was produced by Alex Murray.

The song was written by Larry Banks and Mike Milton Bennett and first released in 1964 by Bessie Banks. Her version did peak at #40 on the Cashbox R&B single charts. Bessie would be songwriter Larry Banks’s ex-wife. She said: “I remember 1963 Kennedy was assassinated; it was announced over the radio. At the time, I was rehearsing in the office of Leiber and Stoller. We called it a day. Everyone was in tears. “Come back next week and we will be ready to record ‘Go Now'”; and we did so. I was happy and excited that maybe this time I’ll make it. ‘Go Now’ was released in January 1964, and right away it was chosen Pick Hit of the Week on W.I.N.S. Radio. That means your record is played for seven days. Four days went by, I was so thrilled. On day five, when I heard the first line, I thought it was me, but all of a sudden, I realized it wasn’t. At the end of the song it was announced, “The Moody Blues singing ‘Go Now’.” I was too out-done. This was the time of the English Invasion and the end of Bessie Banks’ career, so I thought. America’s DJs had stopped promoting American artists”

The song peaked at #10 on the Billboard 100 #2 in Canada, and #1 in the UK in 1965.

Denny Laine: “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.”

Go Now

We’ve already said “goodbye”
Since you gotta go, oh you’d better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Before you see me cry?

I don’t want you to tell me just what you intend to do now
‘Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin’, darlin’
I’m still in love with you now
Whoa oh oh oh

We’ve already said “so long”
I don’t want to see you go, oh you’d better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)

Don’t you even try?
Tellin’ me that you really don’t want it to end this way
‘Cause darlin’, darlin’, can’t you see I want you to stay, yeah

Since you gotta go, oh you’d better
Go now, go now, go now (go now, ooh)
Before you see me cry
I don’t want you to tell me just what you intend to do now
‘Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin’, darlin’
I’m still in love, still in love with you now
Ooh ooh ooh
I don’t want to see you go but darlin’, you better go now

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Max Picks …songs from 1971

1971

This year may be the best ever for albums. You had Who’s Next (My number one), Led Zeppelin IV, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin On, and so much more.

We will start off with what I think is the greatest rock song ever played in a concert environment. I’ve seen The Who play Won’t Get Fooled Again twice and of all the concerts I’ve gone to… I’ve never heard anything this powerful live.

Roger Daltrey’s Scream is considered one of the best on any rock song. It was quite convincing…so convincing that the rest of the band, lunching nearby, thought Daltrey was brawling with the engineer.

Now let’s visit Led Zeppelin and they released IV or Zoso a few weeks after The Who released Who’s Next. Stairway To Heaven…this song is considered by some as the best song in rock history. The song was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Marvin Gaye released this great song and it came off the album of the same name. A powerful song from a powerful performer. The song was written by Al Cleveland, Renaldo Benson, and Marvin Gaye.

The Moody Blues released the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and this song was on it. It may be my favorite song by them. Story In Your Eyes.

Great melody in this song. I bought the album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour just because of this song and I ended up liking the album a lot. The song peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 in 1971. The song was written by Justin Hayward.

This is almost a perfect song…by the one and only Janis Joplin. There are few artists who give everything they have all the time. Bruce Springsteen is one…Janis was one. On film it comes through…she gives everything she has and more. It was written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster.

She would die on October 4, 1970. Her nickname was Pearl and that was the name of her last album. She left $2,500 for her wake…. 200 guests were invited with invitations that read…”Drinks are on Pearl”…

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Max Picks …songs from 1970

1970

The Beatles officially broke up in April of 1970…I hate leaving the 60s behind. The seventies was the time of my childhood at the age of 3 through 13. My music tastes were formed in this decade by listening to…well mostly the 60s.

So let’s get started with The Grateful Dead. They released two of their most popular albums this year… Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Two excellent albums and it was hard to pick a song off of them…but this one does quite nicely. It was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter.

It’s George Harrison time again. When the Beatles broke up, no one knew what to expect from him. Well…George delivered a knockout punch with his album All Things Must Pass. At that time he was outselling John and Paul and just about everyone else. George wrote this song.

This was the opening track on the A Question Of Balance album by the Moody Blues, and at one point it was going to be the title track. The song was recorded several months earlier than the other tracks on the album and its title was shortened from “Question Of Balance” to “Question.”

When I was younger I started with this album and owned everything up until Long Distance Voyager. Their early seventies output is my favorite period but I liked their entire catalog as a whole. It was written by Justin Hayward.

This is what I wrote in my post on this song a while back...”The bass in this song punches you like a heavy-weight fighter and will roll you like wholesale carpet…the timing is absolutely perfect. I hear some Otis and Wilson Pickett in this song and it will make you move.” Huh…I still agree with me!

Groove Me has been a favorite of mine for so long. King Floyd takes almost a full minute to build up to the chorus and it’s well worth the wait when he kicks it in. Thank you King Floyd for writing this song.

This song by Simon and Garfunkel has become a standard. Bridge Over Troubled Water along with Georgia On My Mind was my mom’s favorite song…so I couldn’t leave it off. It was written by Paul Simon.

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Moody Blues – I Know You’re Out There Somewhere

The Moody Blues hit big in the early 80s. I first got into them in the late 70s and I had all of their albums up to Seventh Sojourn. When Long Distance Voyager came out in 1981 a new generation of fans was made.

After I graduated in 85 I heard the single “Your Wildest Dreams” the following year and loved it. I remember the video on MTV and then a few years later in 1988 I heard this song. I could tell by the video alone it was essentially a sequel to Your Wildest Dreams. Guitarist/singer/songwriter Justin Hayward wrote both songs.

Sometimes we kick ourselves over missed opportunities and I do regret not seeing the Moodies live. I never looked at them as prog rock…they were just The Moody Blues…somewhat in a genre by themselves in some ways.

The song peaked at #30 in the Billboard 100, #52 in the UK, #15 in Canada in 1988. This was the band’s last top 40 single in the United States.

Justin Hayward: “I did the keyboard and the guitar and the LinnDrum for ‘Wildest Dreams,’ which was finished first, and for ‘I Know You’re Out There Somewhere’ I decided to use the same keyboard sound and bass sound that I’d got on a Yamaha DX7 and continue that theme. It’s identical tempo and everything.”

Justin Hayward: “I love performing it. Wherever we go, people like it. It wasn’t a massive hit, but people know it. It wasn’t a massive hit because it’s about 6 minutes long and no one did a successful edit on it. That’s probably the one that gives me the most pleasure.”

Since the two songs were connected…here they are.

I Know You’re Out There Somewhere

I know you’re out there somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere
I know I’ll find you somehow
Somehow, somehow
And somehow I’ll return again to you

The mist is lifting slowly
I can see the way ahead
And I’ve left behind the empty streets
That once inspired my life
And the strength of the emotion
Is like thunder in the air
‘Cos the promise that we made each other
Haunts me to the end

I know you’re out there somewhere
Somewhere, somewhere
I know you’re out there somewhere
Somewhere you can hear my voice
I know I’ll find you somehow
Somehow, somehow
I know I’ll find you somehow
And somehow I’ll return again to you

The secret of your beauty
And the mystery of your soul
I’ve been searching for in everyone I meet
And the times I’ve been mistaken
It’s impossible to say
And the grass is growing
Underneath our feet

[Interlude:]
You see I know you’re out there somewhere
O yes I know you’re out there somewhere
You see I know I’ll find you somehow
O yes I know I’ll find you somehow

the words that I remember
From my childhood still are true
That there’s none so blind
As those who will not see
And to those who lack the courage
And say it’s dangerous to try
Well they just don’t know
That love eternal will not be denied

Yes I know it’s going to happen
I can feel you getting near
And soon we’ll be returning
To the fountain of our youth
And if you wake up wondering
In the darkness I’ll be there
My arms will close around you
And protect you with the truth

A Concert of The Mind…Fantasy Park

Imagine a concert in 1975 with The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and more. Well, it happened! Sorta. Rod Serling did all of the radio promos. It would be one of his last projects…he would pass away before it aired.

It was a 48-hour-long rock concert (Fantasy Park) that was aired by nearly 200 radio stations over Labor Day weekend in 1975. The program, produced by KNUS in Dallas, featured performances by dozens of rock stars of the day and even reunited The Beatles. It was also completely imaginary, a theatre-of-the-mind for the 70s.

The “concert” consisted of live and studio recordings by the artists with live effects added to make it sound legit.

The show had college students hitchhiking all over America hoping to get to Fantasy Park. In New Orleans when the concert aired, the IRS came knocking on the doors of WNOE trying to attach the gate receipts to make sure the Feds got their cut! Callers were asking where they could get tickets to this amazing show.

The show was so popular in Minnesota that they played it again in its entirety the next year…now that people knew it wasn’t real and weren’t looking for tickets. The greatest concert that never was. Fantasy Park had their own emcee and special reporters covering the weekend event giving you the play-by-play details along with some behind-the-scenes updates.

The concert would always be halted due to rain on a Sunday morning to allow the locals to get in their regular (usually religious) programming. The whole event ended promptly at 6 pm on Sunday.

Now people look for the full 48-hour tapes of the show. They are a hot collector’s item. Rod Serling passed away on June 28, 1975.

Bands at Fantasy Park

Chicago
Elton John
Led Zeppelin
Joe Walsh
Cream
Shawn Phillips
Pink Floyd
Carly Simon
James Taylor (& Carol King)
Poco
Alvin Lee
Eagles
Linda Rondstadt
Dave Mason
Steve Miller
John Denver
Beach Boys
War
Grand Funk
Yes
Deep Purple
Rolling Stones
Cat Stevens
The Who
Rolling Stones
Moody Blues
Marshall Tucker Band
Allman Brothers Band
Seals & Crofts
America
Joni Mitchell
Doobie Brothers
Loggins and Messina
Crosby/Stills/Nash/Young
Bob Dylan
Beatles

Here is 10 minutes of it here.

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Moody Blues – Nights In White Satin

I have played this song in a club with a 4 piece band and it actually very well received. You don’t have to have the full orchestra for it to sound good…it’s that good of song. Our bass player actually recited the poem to applause. Even after peeling off the layers of music, the song stood.

Justin Hayward wrote this song after he joined the band after Denny Laine had left. It is said that he got the idea for the song after someone gave him a set of white satin sheets, and wrote it in his bed-sit at Bayswater.

The poem at the end was recorded separately. It is called Late Lament and was written by their drummer, Graeme Edge. The poem was read by keyboard player Mike Pinder. Edge wrote another poem that appeared early on the album called Morning Glory.

This song ushered in a new sound for this band who were formally more of a blues band. “Nights in White Satin” was originally released in 1967, charting at #19 in the UK, but topping out at #103 in America, where six-minute songs were a tough sell. In 1972, after songs like “Hey Jude ” and “Layla” paved the way for long, dramatic tunes (and The Moody Blues became more popular), the song was re-released in the US and became a hit, peaking at #2 in the Billboard 100 and #1 in Canada.

Justin Hayward: “I wrote our most famous song, ‘Nights in White Satin’ when I was 19. It was a series of random thoughts and was quite autobiographical. It was a very emotional time as I was at the end of one big love affair and the start of another. A lot of that came out in the song.”

From Songfacts

The Moody Blues recorded the album with The London Festival Orchestra, which never actually existed – it was the name given to the musicians put together to make the Days of Future Passed album. The orchestral parts were performed separately and edited between and around the Moody Blues parts, so the orchestra did not actually accompany the group. The original idea was for the group and orchestra to record a rock version of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” which their record company would use to demonstrate enhanced stereo sound technology.

Before joining The Moody Blues, a teenaged Justin Hayward signed a deal with Lonnie Donegan’s publishing company, which ended up giving Donegan the lion’s share of the royalties for this and other songs Hayward wrote at the time. Donegan was star in the ’50s, famous for his skiffle sound that influenced The Beatles and The Who. In the ’60s, he became more involved in the business side of the industry and formed his publishing company Tyler Music.

Days of Future Passed is a concept album based around different times of day. For example, “Dawn Is A Feeling” and “Tuesday Afternoon.” This song was last on the album because it represents nighttime.

Justin Hayward was inspired by Moody Blues keyboard player Mike Pinder’s composition “Dawn Is A Feeling.” Since Pinder had done “The Morning” for the concept album, Hayward tried to do “The Night.”

Fans have come up with many interpretations of this song, which is just fine with Justin Hayward, who fells that the receiver gives life to the transmission. “It’s the listeners who bring the magic and the interpretations to these songs,” he said in his 2016 Songfacts interview.

This song introduced a new sound for the band. When they formed, they were more of a blues band, and had a hit in 1965 with a cover of Bessie Banks’ “Go Now.” With the songs on Days of Future Passed, they distinguished themselves with original songs in a more psychedelic/orchestral sound.

In the UK, the song made two more chart appearances, going to #9 in 1972 and #14 in 1979.

The Dickies 1979 Punk version reached #39; the Moody Blues used to use The Dickies version sometimes when doing a sound check.

The week of December 2, 1972, this song plunged from #17 to completely out of the Hot 100, setting a record for the biggest drop out of that chart in a single week. Drastic chart disappearances became more common in the ’10s, and the Glee Cast version of “Toxic” made the fall from the #16 spot in 2010.

Talking about the experiences that inspired the lyrics to this song, Justin Hayward said: “About an audience in Glastonbury, a flat in Bayswater and the ecstasy of an hour of love.”

Among the many artists to record this song are Procol Harum, Eric Burdon, Percy Faith, Nancy Sinatra and Il Divo. When we spoke with Justin Hayward in 2013, he told us that the best cover he heard of this song was by the soul singer Bettye LaVette. “She covered ‘Nights,’ and somebody sent it to me as an MP3, a link,” he explained. “I was sitting in bed with my laptop waking up to my emails, and I clicked on this link and I burst into tears. My wife came in and she said, ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ And I said, ‘You’ve got to listen to this.’ She didn’t cry. But I heard the lyric for the first time. There have been hundreds, maybe thousands of covers of ‘Nights in White Satin,’ but that was the first time I heard it for real.”

The Moody Blues enjoyed a long and illustrious career that took them well into the 2010’s, and included thousands of performances, most of which featured this song. How does Justin Hayward handle the repetition? “I never lose the emotion of songs like that,” he told us. “I’m lucky enough not to have lost the emotion or the motivation, because it’s a wonderful thing to be able to share. And the audience provides the emotion around that. Because you do it in sound check and it’s fine, but when there’s an audience there, it completely transforms the experience.”

Nights In White Satin

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I’ve written
Never meaning to send

Beauty I’d always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can’t say any more

‘Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you

Gazing at people, some hand in hand
Just what I’m going through they can’t understand
Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend
Just what you want to be, you will be in the end

And I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I’ve written
Never meaning to send

Beauty I’ve always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can’t say any more

‘Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you
‘Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Oh how I love you

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Moody Blues – Your Wildest Dreams

It’s easy to relate to this song… most have someone who they felt got away and you still think about them and wonder if they think about you.

It has a great hook and it gets you right away. The Moody Blues have been described as a progressive rock band but I have never thought of them that way. Maybe because I don’t particularly like progressive rock bands. I’ve always thought the Moodies were a great pop/rock band who plays for the song like Story In Your Eyes, Question, and others. This song is more of a pop song than some of their early ones but a catchy one.

It was written by Justin Hayward and peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100, #1 in the Adult Contemporary Charts, and #2 in the Mainstream Rock Charts in1986.

Justin Hayward: “I found with ‘Wildest Dreams’ that it was a common experience for a lot of people,” he said. “I thought I was writing a frivolous sort of song. I thought ‘Wildest Dreams’ would be a throwaway thing that people wouldn’t really take much notice of lyrically. But I found out that it was a common experience and desire by a lot of people. So that was very revealing.”

From Songfacts

The Moody Blues were one of the first bands to use a Mellotron, which was a keyboard instrument that played sounds by triggering tape loops. Mike Pinder, a founding member of the band, was their Mellotron virtuoso. After Pinder’s departure in 1979, Justin Hayward began experimenting with synthesizers and became particularly fond of the Yamaha DX7, which is apparent on this track.

Tony Visconti, famous for his work with David Bowie, produced The Other Side Of Life album and encouraged the band to use some unusual instruments. “Most of ‘Wildest Dreams’ – 90% of it – is Tony Visconti, my DX7, and a guitar synth,” Justin Hayward tells us. “The piece at the beginning that sounds like a sort of Theremin, a (humming) ‘oooo ooo,’ that’s a guitar synth. All of that is. So it was just another way of exploring musical avenues. Tony Visconti was very much into that and the first person who really turned the band on to programming in a serious way. And he was very, very good at it, so I enjoyed every moment of that.”

Justin Hayward wrote the song “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere,” which appeared on the next Moody Blues album, Sur la Mer, as a sequel to this song, with the singer longing to find the girl.

For “Somewhere,” he went back to his Yamaha DX7 synthesizer and used the same keyboard and bass sounds, keeping the same tempo. This gave the songs a similar musical feel to connect them musically, and then he wrote the lyrics to continue the story.

Your Wildest Dreams

Once upon a time
Once when you were mine
I remember skies
Reflected in your eyes
I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams

Once the world was new
Our bodies felt the morning dew
That greets the brand new day
We couldn’t tear ourselves away
I wonder if you care
I wonder if you still remember
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams

And when the music plays
And when the words are touched with sorrow
When the music plays
I hear the sound I had to follow
Once upon a time

Once beneath the stars
The universe was ours
Love was all we knew
And all I knew was you
I wonder if you know
I wonder if you think about it
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

And when the music plays
And when the words are touched with sorrow
When the music plays
And when the music plays
I hear the sound I had to follow
Once upon a time

Once upon a time
Once when you were mine
I remember skies
Mirrored in your eyes
I wonder where you are
I wonder if you think about me
Once upon a time
In your wildest dreams (ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah)
In your wildest dreams (ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah)
In your wildest dreams (ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah)
In your wildest dreams (ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah)

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

The Moody Blues – Gemini Dream

I remember in Jr High school in 1981 I bought Long Distant Voyager by the Moody Blues. The album received a lot of airplay and peaked at #1 in the Billboard album charts. It had two top twenty hits with The Voice and Gemini Dream. Gemini Dream peaked at #12 in the Billboard 100.

The Moody Blues knew how to adapt. They started off as an R&B band, moved into experimental orchestral rock, dipped into rock, and in the 80s produced some high charting pop songs. I always liked their early seventies output the best but this was a great comeback for them entering the 80s. This album introduced them to another generation of fans.

This is a combination of two songs, the first being bass player John Lodge’s song about going on the road again and the second being guitarist Justin Hayward’s song about love being shared or twin “Gemini” dreams.

Gemini Dream

Long time no see
Short time for you and me
So fine, so good
We’re on the road
Like you knew we would

First night, so long
A state of mind
What can go wrong
We’re here, the time is right
To rock ‘n’ roll
Right through the night

Make it work out
Make it work
Make it work out
Make it work out
For each other tonight

Stage fright, candle light
You can’t let go
Tonight’s the night
Came back for you
Glad to see
That you came too

There’s a place a Gemini dream
There’s no escaping from the love we have seen
So come with me, turn night today
You gonna wake up
You know you gonna wake up in a Gemini dream

Turned round to see
Where we’ve been
And what we believe
In life, love
Take a chance
See it through
You’ll be glad
That you came too

There’s a place a Gemini dream
There’s no escaping from the love we have seen
So come with me, turn night to day
You gonna wake up
You know you gonna wake up in a Gemini dream

Long time no see
The lights go up
For you and me
We’re here
The time is right
To rock ‘n’ roll
Right through the night

Living it
Believing it
Wanting it
Make it work out
Make it work
Make it work out
Make it work out
For each other tonight

Long time no see
Short time for you and me
So fine so far so good
We’re on the road
Like you knew we would

Moody Blues – Question

This was the opening track on the Question Of Balance album, and at one point it was going to be the title track. The song was recorded several months earlier than the other tracks on the album and its title was shortened from “Question Of Balance” to “Question.”

When I was younger I started with this album and owned everything up until Long Distance Voyager. Their early seventies output is my favorite period but I liked their entire catalog as a whole.

The song peaked at #21 in the Billboard 100 and #2 in the UK in 1970. In the UK, this became the group’s biggest hit for their classic lineup. Before John Lodge and Justin Hayward joined the group in 1966, they had a #1 UK hit with “Go Now.”

From Songfacts

Moody Blues guitarist/vocalist Justin Hayward wrote this song, which reflected the thoughts of many young people who were questioning the war in Vietnam. He told us: “We’d achieved great success in the United States and we were playing a lot of student venues and colleges, and the student audience was our audience. We were mixing with these people and seeing how different the problems were for them and the issues in being a member of the greatest nation on earth: the United States. How different they were from British people. I was just expressing my frustration around that, around the problems of anti-war and things that really concerned them, and for their own future that they may be conscripted. How that would morally be a dilemma for them and that kind of stuff. So it did really come out of that. And my own particular anger at what was happening. After a decade of peace and love, it still seemed we hadn’t made a difference in 1970. I suppose that was the theme of the song. And then the slow part of the song is really a reflection of that and not feeling defeated, but almost a quiet reflection of it, and mixing with a bit of a love song, as well.” (Here’s the full Justin Hayward interview.)

In the liner notes of the 1997 remastered CD, Justin Hayward wrote: “Sometime before we taped the album, we (documented) ‘Question,’ which was a song that I didn’t have on Friday night for a session (the next day). But, by the morning, I had it and it was recorded very quickly.” Hayward adds that it was “Recorded live, with no overdubbing or double-tracking, just a bit of echo.”

The song is a concert mainstay of The Moody Blues, which is fine with Justin Hayward, who tells us he never loses the emotion for it when he performs the tune. It’s also a song that has remained relevant. Says Hayward: “There’s no doubt that it still resonates, the lyrics reflect whichever generation you’re in. Whatever time you’re in, people are experiencing those emotions. And I find that people identify with it at any age.”

Many of the songs Justin Hayward wrote for The Moody Blues don’t have obvious titles – “The Voice,” for instance. This song is another one without a natural title where he chose a word from the lyrics to represent it.

Question

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war?
‘Cause when we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?
Because the truth is hard to swallow
That’s what the war of love is for

It’s not the way that you say it
When you do those things to me
It’s more the way that you mean it
When you tell me what will be
And when you stop and think about it
You won’t believe it’s true
That all the love you’ve been giving
Has all been meant for you

I’m looking for someone to change my life
I’m looking for a miracle in my life
And if you could see what it’s done to me
To lose the love I knew
Could safely lead me through

Between the silence of the mountains
And the crashing of the sea
There lies a land I once lived in
And she’s waiting there for me
But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose

I’m looking for someone to change my life
I’m looking for a miracle in my life
And if you could see what it’s done to me
To lose the love I knew
Could safely lead me to
The land that I once knew
To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our soul
It’s not the way that you say it when you do those things to me
It’s more the way you really mean it when you tell me what will be

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war?
When we stop and look around us
There is nothing that we need
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?

Moody Blues – The Voice

I remember in Jr High school in 1981 I bought Long Distant Voyager by the Moody Blues. The album received heavy play and peaked at #1 in the Billboard album charts. The album had two top twenty hits with The Voice and Gemini Dream. The Voice peaked at #15 in the Billboard 100.

With no clear title in the lyrics, Justin Hayward had no idea what to name this song. When the group’s engineer, Greg Jackman, asked him what to call it, Hayward replied, “I’ll think of that after.”

Jackman thought he said, “Fat Arthur,” and wrote that on the tape. That was the song’s name right up to the mastering process when Jackman pushed for a more sensible title before they turned it over to the label. Hayward went through the lyrics and picked out “The Voice,” which is what stuck.

Mike Pinder left after the previous album Octave and was replaced by Patrick Moraz.

From Songfacts

This was one of the songs that propelled The Moody Blues to a comeback in the early 1980s, and of their newer songs, it appealed the most strongly to fans of their original work. Written by Justin Hayward, the lyrics have the same philosophical tone of their songs in the late 1960s, and the song is alternately urgent and hopeful about the future. It seems to be telling listeners that they face major choices on how their world will turn out, and that there is great hope in it, but only if they make it happen of their own initiative.

After the Moody Blues came to San Francisco and played their psychedelia-tinged songs in 1967, they’ve been perceived in some circles as a Flower Power band. They are certainly very introspective, but their music changed with the times, thanks in part to a shift in songwriting for Justin Hayward. By the ’80s, he no longer needed to be in just the right mood to write a song (like he was on one Tuesday Afternoon), but could compose in his music room on a regular schedule. Hayward cites this discipline for the band’s continued success in the ’80s.

Hayward did something different on this track, recording two guitars to a click track and then bringing that tape to the band to give them the tempo and feel of the song. This is the method he used on many songs throughout the decade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFmxsSh0XzI&ab_channel=%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%9C%D0%B8%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2

The Voice

Won’t you take me back to school?
I need to learn the golden rule.
Won’t you lay it on the line?
I need to hear it just one more time.

Oh, won’t you tell me again?
Oh, can you feel it?
Oh, won’t you tell me again tonight?

Each and every heart it seems,
Is bounded by a world of dreams.
Each and every rising sun,
Is greeted by a lonely one.

Oh, won’t you tell me again?
Oh, can you feel it?
Oh, won’t you tell me again tonight?

Cause out on the ocean of life my love.
There a so many storms we must rise above.
Can you hear the spirit calling, as it’s carried across the waves?
You’re already falling it’s calling you back to face the music.
And the song that is coming through.
You’re already falling the one that it’s calling is you.

My a promise take a vow.
And trust your feelings it easy now.
Understand The Voice within.
And feel a change already beginning.

Oh, won’t you tell me again?
Oh, can you feel it?
Oh, won’t you tell me again tonight? Tonight?

Oh, won’t you tell me again?
Oh, can you feel it?
Oh, won’t you tell me again tonight?

And how many words have I got to say?
And how many times will it be this way?
With your arms around the future and your back up against the past.
You’re already falling it’s calling you on to face the music.
And the song that is coming through.
You’re already falling the one that it’s calling is you.

Each and every heart it seems,
Is bounded by a world of dreams.
Each and every rising sun,
Is greeted by, a lonely, lonely one.

Won’t you tell me again?
Oh, can you feel it?
Oh, won’t you tell me again tonight?

Moody Blues – Ride My See-Saw

Love the tone of the guitar in this one. The song peaked at #61 in the Billboard 100 and #42 in the UK in 1968. The song is off of the album In Search of the Lost Chord.

John Lodge quote on writing Ride My See-Saw

“The song is really about growing up. It’s about what you learn at school and everything else…it’s pretty cool. But when you grow up and go into the real world, you can’t take that with you. You need to see what’s happening in the real world, and whatever you learned in life up until that time, it will give you a nice grounding so you can find your way in life. It’s really important that you’re aware of the world and what’s actually happening in it, and to try to relate to that. “Ride My See-Saw” is the fact that you’re going up and down—you learn a bit and you lose a bit. That’s what this song is about.”

From Songfacts.

“Ride My See-Saw” was written by John Lodge, bass player for The Moody Blues. It was one of two singles from their In Search of the Lost Chord album. The B-side of the single was “A Simple Game” in the UK “Voices In The Sky” in the US.

“Ride My See-Saw” has become one of the band’s most popular live tunes. It is the song regularly reserved for the finale performance in stage shows, with a lengthy keyboard and drum duet before the rest of the band comes out onstage for the encore.

This song was one of the first single releases to be recorded on 8-track multi-track tape.

In Search of the Lost Chord is a concept album around a broad theme of quest and discovery. This song found the Moodies exploring knowledge in a changing world.

Ride My See-Saw

Ride, ride my see-saw,
Take this place
On this trip
Just for me.

Ride, take a free ride,
Take my place
Have my seat
It’s for free.

I worked like a slave for years,
Sweat so hard just to end my fears.
Not to end my life a poor man,
But by now, I know I should have run.

Run, run my last race,
Take my place
Have this number
Of mine.

Run, run like a fire,
Don’t you run in
In the lanes
Run for time.

Left school with a first class pass,
Started work but as second class.
School taught one and one is two.
But right now, that answer just ain’t true.

Ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah

My world is spinning around,
Everything is lost that I found.
People run, come ride with me,
Let’s find another place that’s free.

Ride, ride my see-saw,
Take this place
On this trip
Just for me.

Ride, take a free ride,
Take my place
Have my seat
It’s for free.

Ride, my see-saw.
Ride, ride, ride, my see-saw.
Ride, my see-saw…

New Musical Express Winners 1965 Concert

I have the video of this show. First, the lineup to this event included

The Moody Blues
Freddie and the Dreamers
Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames
The Seekers
Herman’s Hermits
The Ivy League
Sounds Incorporated
Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
The Rolling Stones
Cilla Black
Donovan
Them
The Searchers
Dusty Springfield
The Animals
The Beatles
The Kinks

Think about the talent on that stage. To see the Stones, Animals, Van Morrison with Them, The Kinks and The Beatles all in the same day on the same stage. This would be a dream concert. Jimmy Saville hosted the event. It’s hard to watch the guy knowing what we know now about him.

It’s great to see The Rolling Stones with Brian Jones but you can tell the Beatles were THE Band of the day and were clearly the most anticipated.

You see a young Van Morrison fluff a line in “Here Comes The Night” but his voice comes through loud and clear. It’s a wonder you have a sound at all. In between songs you see roadies roll out amps and drums for the next band. They did quite well and it was never a long break between bands.

The sound quality is not the greatest but it’s good enough to watch considering the hectic way they had everyone perform.

The next year the Who, Rolling Stones, and the Beatles would play but The Beatles and Stones would not let their segments be recorded.

As far as I know, there is not an official release of this video…You can watch it on Youtube or order a bootleg DVD on various sites.