THE MOODY BLUES: "Seventh Sojourn"

Original released on LP Threshold THS 7

(UK, 23 October 1972)

Despite the presence of a pair of ballads - one of them ("New Horizons") by Justin Hayward the latter's most romantic number since "Nights in White Satin" - "Seventh Sojourn" was notable at the time of its release for showing the hardest-rocking sound this band had ever produced on record. It's all relative, of course, compared to their prior work, but the music is comparatively stripped down here, and on a lot of it Graeme Edge's drumming and John Lodge's bass work comprise a more forceful and assertive rhythm section than they had on earlier records, on numbers such as "Lost in a Lost World," "You and Me," and "I'm Just a Singer (In a Rock & Roll Band)." The latter, authored by Lodge, was - along with Lodge's "Isn't Life Strange" - one of two AM radio hits that helped drive the sales of this album, issued in early October of 1972, past all previous levels. Indeed, it was with the release of this album that the Moodies achieved their great commercial success in America and around the world, with a "Grand Tour" that kept them on the road for much of the year that followed. The irony was that it was all about to end for them, for years to come, and the signs of it were all over this record - "Seventh Sojourn" took a long time to record, and a lot of the early work on it had to be junked ("Isn't Life Strange" was one of the few early songs to get completed); it was clear to all concerned except the fans that, after six years of hard work in their present configuration, they all needed to stop working with each other for a time, and this was clear in the songs - many have a downbeat, pensive edge to them, and if they reflected a questioning attitude that had come out on recent albums, the tone of the questioning on songs like "Lost in a Lost World," "You and Me," and "When You're a Free Man" had a darker, more desperate tone. Perhaps the group's mostly youthful, collegiate audience didn't notice at the time because it fit the mood of the times - the album hit the stores in America the day before Richard Nixon's landslide presidential re-election victory (the culmination of events behind the scenes that would subsequently drive him from office). But the members were not working well together, and this would be the last wholly successful record - difficult as it was to deliver - that this lineup of the band would record, as well as the last new work by the group for over five years. And oddly enough, even amid the difficulties in getting it finished, "Seventh Sojourn" would offer something new in the way of sounds from the group - Michael Pinder, in particular, introduced a successor to the Mellotron, with which he'd been amazing audiences for six years, in the form of the Chamberlin, which is all over this album. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

Never Comes the Day (For My Love and Me)

 THE MOODY BLUES

“ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM”
Original released as LP Deram SML 1035, UK April 25

 Side one:

                    A1. In the Beginning (2:07)

                    A2. Lovely to See You (2:34)

                    A3. Dear Diary (3:56)

                    A4. Send Me No Wine (2:21)

                    A5. To Share Our Love (2:53)

                    A6. So Deep Within You (3:07)

Side two

                    B1. Never Comes the Day (4:43)

                    B2. Lazy Day (2:43)

                    B3. Are You Sitting Comfortably (3:30)

                    B4. The Dream (0:57)

                    B5. Have You Heard – Part 1 (1:52)

                    B6. The Voyage (4:10)

                    B7. Have You Heard – Part 2 (2:36)

THE BAND:

Justin Hayward (vocals, guitar, writer)

John Lodge (vocals, bass, cello, writer)

Ray Thomas (vocals, harmonica, flute, tambourine, writer)

Graeme Edge (drums, percussion, vocals, writer)

Mike Pinder (vocals, Mellotron, Hammond organ, piano, cello, writer)

 

Produced by Tony Clark

Engineered by Derek Varnals and Adrian Martins

Cover Art: Phil Travers

Photography: Terence Abbott and David Wedgbury

 

"On the Threshold of a Dream" foi o primeiro álbum que os Moody Blues tiveram a oportunidade de preparar e gravar numa situação de relativa calma, sem distrações com agendas de digressões.  Na verdade, foi um trabalho feito em circunstâncias quase ideais. Os Moodies, na sua nova formação, vinham de dois álbuns excelentes, "Days of Future Passed" e "In Search of the Lost Chord", ambos com sucesso de vendas, quer nos Estados Unidos quer em Inglaterra. Tal êxito cimentou-lhes a consideração da editora, a Decca Records, que lhes deu carta branca para trabalharem em estúdio durante todo o mês de Janeiro e a maior parte de Fevereiro de 1969; além disso, com dois LPs no currículo, os Moody Blues estavam agora imbuídos de ideias muito mais concisas sobre o tipo de música que podiam compôr. Igualmente importante, tinham acabado de sair de uma extensa digressão pelos EUA (juntamente com os Cream) no decorrer da qual tinham conseguido desenvolver um som muito mais uniforme, quer instrumental quer vocal, estando prontos para uma nova etapa. "On the Threshold of a Dream" é claramente uma aposta ganha e um dos trabalhos mais bonitos e importantes dos Moody Blues. Pode também ser considerado, e surpreendemente, um álbum hard-rocking, considerando a quantidade de overdubbing que levou ao aperfeiçoamento das canções, incluindo violoncelos, instrumentos de sopro, e muitas camadas vocais. 

O lado B foi o mais abertamente ambicioso das duas metades: depois de um par de canções dominadas pela guitarra acústica e mellotron, "Never Comes the Day" e "Lazy Day" (este último um comentário social mostrando que Ray Thomas, pelo menos, ainda se lembrava das suas raízes em Birmingham), o resto do disco cede lugar à composição musical mais desafiante da história do grupo. "Are You Sitting Comfortably?", deliberadamente arcaica, de Justin Hayward, uma peça que soa quase 400 anos fora do seu próprio tempo, evoca imagens da história medieval e renascentista entrelaçadas com magia e misticismo, tudo ao lado da guitarra acústica de Hayward e da flauta de Thomas, levando à contribuição poética de Graeme Edge, "The Dream", acompanhada pelos mellotrons de Mike Pinder na sua aparição mais exposta até à data num disco. Esta síntese da psycodelismo e música clássica, incluindo uma secção com Mike Pinder ao piano de cauda, pode soar exagerada e pretensiosa hoje em dia, mas em 1969 era uma música envolvente e destruidora de géneros, escalando fronteiras e avançando por territórios até então desconhecidos. "On the Threshold of a Dream" foi o album que me introduziu ao universo muito particular dos Moody Blues e, comercialmente, ultrapassou o êxito precedente, chegando ao topo das tabelas em Inglaterra, onde permaneceu durante 70 semanas, um feito ainda mais notável pelo facto do single dele extraído, "Never Comes the Day” / "So Deep Within You", nunca se ter destacado.

THE MOODY BLUES: "Octave"

Original released on LP Decca TXS 129

(UK, June 1978)

The Moody Blues' resumed work together after a four-year hiatus and delivered "Octave" in 1978, which quickly became a hit but has also proved to be a very problematic album. Picking up where he left off on "Seventh Sojourn", bassist / singer John Lodge generated a hit single (and also a solid album opener) with the surprisingly edgy (for this band) rocker "Steppin' in a Slide Zone." And Justin Hayward's "Had to Fall in Love," "Driftwood," and "The Day We Meet Again" - the latter their best album closer since "Watching and Waiting" - are also up to the standard one would wish for (and a bit of a surprise, coming in the wake of two major solo projects that should have depleted his song bag). Additionally, Graeme Edge's "I'll Be Level with You" gives the album some harder rocking moments, but that's not the real reason for buying Moody Blues records; rather, it's the sweep, the overall body of music and vision, psychedelic and romantic, punched up with some solid rock moments, and it's this larger arc of the music that is missing here. Ray Thomas' two songs are lackluster compared with his earlier work; and Mike Pinder's "One Step Into the Light" is so limited in its scope, compared to his earlier album-defining mystical explorations, that he's barely a presence on the album (and he did quit the band in the course of completing this record). As well as not quite offering an album's worth of good songs, the whole album lacks the depth and scope of preceding releases; 1978 would have been a little late for an album steeped in psychedelia, but the MBs didn't quite have anything to replace the latter element in the mix. "Octave" has its moments, and even a few very good ones - and two great ones, on "Steppin' in a Slide Zone" and the place where the chorus comes in on "The Day We Meet Again" - but they're not supported by enough that's worthwhile. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

Uma Questão de Balanço

Original Released as LP THRESHOLD TH3 (stereo)
(UK, August 1970)

A1. Question 5’43
A2. How Is It (We Are Here) 2’44
A3. And The Tide Rushes In 2’57
A4. Don’t You Feel Small 2’37
A5. Tortoise And The Hare 3’22
B1. It’s Up To You 3’11
B2. Minstrel’s Song 4’27
B3. Dawning Is The Day 4’21
B4. Melancholy Man 5’45
B5. The Balance 3’28
C1. Mike's Number One (bonus track) 3'33
C2. Question (alternate version) (bonus track) 6'06
C3. Minstrel's Song (original mix) (bonus track) 4'34
C4. It's Up to You (original mix) (bonus track) 3'19
C5. Don't You Feel Small (original mix) (bonus track) 3'01
C6. Dawning is the Day (full original mix) (bonus track) 4'38

All instruments played by The Moody Blues:

Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder, John Lodge,

Ray Thomas and Graeme Edge

Producer: Tony Clark

Engineers: Derek Varnals/Adrian Martins/Robin Thompson

Cover Painting: Phil Travers

Highest UK chart position: 1

Highest US chart position: 3

"When all the stars are falling down..."

"A Question of Balance" is the fifth album of a classical series comprising 7 albums recorded and released by the Moody Blues between 1967 and 1972; this series is sometimes called 'core 7' or 'classical 7'. It was Moodies' first album to reach the Top 5 on both sides of the Atlantic and swapped the complexities of their earlier LPs, for a more straight-ahead approach. It was also preceded by one of the band's best-selling singles, "Question", released in a shorter version. Here, opening the album, "Question" is presented in its full astonishing lenght, being a perfect example of a short prog-song must be.

With the turn of a new decade and the close of the psychedelic sixties, the Moody Blues realized that the psychedelic spirit that defined their preceding three LPs, which thrived on maximum studio experimentation (e.g., heavy layering of tracks with myriad instruments, electronic effects), had resulted in albums that were not easily translatable to live performance. So, they pared back accordingly with their fifth album, "A Question of Balance", which bassist Jon Lodge would describe as «like a move from marijuana to alcohol!» The intent of Balance was to produce an album that could be playable on stage no problemo, and from here until their initial dissolution with 1972's "Seventh Sojourn", they would put away the sitars and harps and keep the overdubs to a manageable minimum.

This album is perhaps the best example of the all round, all pervading sound of the Moody Blues from its climactic start to the final note. The Moodies gained the reputation of building a distinctive ‘orchestral’ wall of sound. The tracks tend to run one into the next. The opening of the next track is usually subdued and gives a (temporary) feeling of anti-climax but it too develops into its logical and majestic conclusion. The original vinyl album came in a folding sleeve that opened out to make a long poster. The pop art scene painted by Phil Travers (who produced most of the early artwork for Moody Blues albums) shows people in deckchairs sitting on a beach looking up at dramatic and conflicting images in the sky (Einstein, rockets, elephants, storm clouds and guns). The lyrics are inside the zip file; and the album is also presented with no space between songs: Side A and Side B, like we used to hear it in the good old days.

THE MOODY BLUES: "Caught Live + 5"

Original released on LP Decca MB 3-4

(UK, June 1977)

The Moody Blues’ “classic” era ended with the release in 1972 of "Seventh Sojourn", their last studio LP for six years. So I paid no attention to this mostly-live LP when it came out in 1977, with its oh-so-generically-70s cover art (so different from the Philip Travers art of the earlier albums). However, all the material on the album comes from 1967 to 1969, placing it chronologically between "To Our Children’s Children’s Children" and "A Question of Balance".  The first three sides are from a December 1969 concert at The Royal Albert Hall in London, with Sides A and B largely avoiding hits in favor of deep album tracks like “The Sunset”, “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume”, and “Are You Sitting Comfortably?”/”The Dream”/”Have You Heard (Pt. 1)”/“The Voyage”/”Have You Heard (Pt. 2)”, from "On the Threshold of a Dream". Side C, in contrast, goes for the big finish with “Nights in White Satin”, “Legend of a Mind”, and the encore “Ride My See-Saw”. The performance a little ragged… the falsetto harmony vocals in particular are grating, although they don’t get truly embarrassing until “See-Saw”. (The group themselves were supposedly dissatisfied with it and not too pleased at its release.) In addition, the sound quality on the original LP was not great, with, for example, the between-song patter virtually inaudible; the remastered CD version is reportedly much better. Side D consists of five studio outtakes. Overall, they’re typical of such collections – mostly not bad but not outstanding. I think the one real keeper is “What Am I Doing Here?”, and the one real clunker is “Please Think About It”, which is basically just a generic love song and is taken at a lugubrious pace. (in RateYourMusic)

THE MOODY BLUES: "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour"

Original released on LP Threshold THS 5

(UK, July 1971)

The best-realized of their classic albums, "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" was also the last of the group's albums for almost a decade to be done under reasonably happy and satisfying circumstances - for the last time with this lineup, they went into the studio with a reasonably full song bag and a lot of ambition and brought both as far as time would allow, across close to four months (interrupted by a tour of the United States right in the middle). Virtually everywhere you listen on this record, the lush melodies and the sound of Michael Pinder's Mellotron (augmented here by the Moog synthesizer and a brace of other instruments) just sweep over the music, and where they don't, Justin Hayward's guitar pyrotechnics on pieces like "The Story in Your Eyes" elevate the hard rocking side of the music, in tandem with John Lodge's muscular bass work - which still leaves plenty of room for a cello here, and a grand piano there, on top of Ray Thomas' flute, and Graeme Edge's ever more ambitious percussion. "Emily's Song." "Nice to Be Here," and "My Song" are among the best work the group ever did, and "The Story in Your Eyes" is the best rock number they ever cut, with a bracing beat and the kind of lyrical complexity one more expected out of George Harrison at the time. Sad to say, the group would never be this happy with an album again - at least not for a lot of years - or with their commitment to being a group, though they would leave one more highly worthwhile album before taking a hiatus for most of the rest of the 1970s. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

Para As Gerações Vindouras

Original released on LP Threshold THS 1

(UK, November 1969)

Maybe I'm an odd duck, but I seriously go back and forth about this album being my absolute favorite of all time. Much of its impact on me comes from its atmosphere - this is a serious 'vibe' album if there ever was one - so it makes sense that some days this is a no-brainer best-of-all-time, and other days I prefer my "White Album" or my "Live at Leeds". Regardless, it's always somewhere in my top two or three favorites. When I'm in the mood for this, though, it's an unbelievably amazing listen. It's even better that I'm in that mood a lot. I've listened to this album more than any other in my collection, and 15 years (as of this writing) after first hearing it, I love it now even more than ever. Hands down, this is the Moody Blues' best album. In fact, for me, this album is somewhat of an anomaly in their catalogue. The reason I say this is because no other album of theirs (as great as some of them are) even approaches the level of majesty, cathartic beauty, or pensive introspection that abounds here. Honestly, I’m not even sure how they pulled it off. Not only is it easily the most consistent album they ever made, it also just happened to be written while every member of the band was at the top of his respective songwriting arc. And it's not simply a matter of consistency, either. The way these songs play off each other and the thoughtful, meditative atmosphere they create simply astounds me. It's light years ahead of even their second-best work.

In addition to being the peak of their democratic songwriting and functioning as a band, it represents the peak of the Moodies' classic "mellotron-drenched" sound. There are tons of overdubs here, and if anyone is keeping score, this album has got to be the greatest mellotron showcase in the history of the instrument. The album concept is based loosely on the moon landing of the same year, and mankind's 'mastery' of science in general. Also prevalent in the loose concept is the idea of eternity and the loneliness of infinite time. Or something like that. All I know is that the 'concept' is broad enough to accommodate lots of actual thought-provoking philosophizing, even from the sometimes banal Moody Blues. Edge's "Higher and Higher" is a fantastic opener. It starts off with a laudable recreation of a rocket launch with some choral vocals joining in before launching into a blistering rock song. In light of the lyrics, «Higher and higher / now we've learned to play with fire / we go higher and higher and higher» this progression of science is brilliantly emphasized. The music is no slouch either; it is one of the few times that the Moodies actively cut loose. Just listen to that wild guitar playing from the usually reticent Hayward. Good stuff. John's first contribution, "Eyes of a Child" is simply gorgeous, and is my pick for the best John Lodge song ever. The harmonies, the contra-flute (or whatever that is), the lyrics, and the emotion really come together to make the ultimate Moody Blues song. It’s a total winner. The reprise of "Eyes" takes the form of a rock song, but it is in no way repetitive, and in fact it is too short with a running time of only a minute twenty. I could have used some more of this.

Ray Thomas is in top form on this album, contributing two absolute classics in "Floating" and "Eternity Road". The former is an ode to moon walking, and is just perfect: it really makes you feel like you're "bouncing about on the moon" and is also poignant in its underlying sense of loneliness. It also helps that it is absurdly catchy, and contains some of the group's best harmonizing. The latter is my pick for Ray's best song ever, and also the best song on the album; it simply boasts one of the greatest culminations of lyrics and atmosphere I've ever heard, especially the last minute or so of the song. To my ears it’s the most complex track on here. It also has the best guitar playing on the album with Hayward’s wonderful double-tracked solo and layers upon layers of jazzy noodling guitar lines in the outro, along with a great flute solo during the fade-out. Hayward also contributes the dark and brooding "Gypsy". In my opinion it's the best up-tempo number Hayward's ever penned, which really says a hell of a lot. It is the perfect embodiment in song of the feeling of rushing from danger into danger. It also kicks off the best three-song stretch on any MB album ever: "Gypsy", the above-mentioned "Eternity Road", and Lodge's amazing "Candle of Life". The song is soooo damned beautiful, and giving to Hayward to sing was a good move - his voice in 1969 was one of the best in rock music - but the best contribution to the song is that of Mike Pinder. "Candle of Life" could be Mike's showpiece because it's like a mini-mellotron symphony, and the mid-section piano part... all I can say is that Mike Pinder is brutally and unjustly overlooked as a keyboardist. An untrained ear would probably think that "Candle of Life" was recorded with an orchestra.

Speaking of Mike, his contributions include "Out and In" (which is co-written by Lodge) and "Sun Is Still Shining." "Out and In" is, again, quite a mellotron showpiece, and is just as dark and brooding as any other Pinder song, but "Sun Is Still Shining" finds him in a rare cheerful mood. They are both quintessential Pinder, in that they are both meditations on, well, meditation and reincarnation, I guess. The remaining tracks are all more or less mood-setters, but they are all winners. "Beyond" is an Edge-penned instrumental that oscillates back and forth between rockin' passages and ambient, ominous stretches. Hayward's "I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Hundred" are quite short and economical, and while they might not astound on their own, without them, the album would really suffer grievously. You cannot deny the shiver-inducing vocals, though. The album closer "Watching and Waiting" was supposedly penned as a "Nights in White Satin"-type single effort. I myself don't hear much of a resemblance, as it is much more spare than I would expect from a "Nights" clone. Honestly, as great of an album-closer as "Nights in White Satin" is, this one is better for its relative sparseness. I really like how the album ends up on such a subtle, non-bombastic manner, leaving a feeling of almost irresolution. I’ve also seen the lyrics of this song take a beating elsewhere, but I love them: «Don't be alarmed / by my fields and my forests / they're here for only you to share.» It's like a cry of loneliness from a planet (Earth, perhaps), which is interesting, to say the least. Please buy this album. It really and truly is one of the high points of art/progressive rock, and definitely a 'sleeper' album if there ever was one. I can completely understand how some can miss the greatness of this album, because it took a long time for it to really grow on me. Once it did, though, it has moved me in ways that no other album ever has. (in RateYourMusic)

MOODIES's "On the Threshold of a Dream"

Original released on LP Deram  SML 1035

(UK 1969, April 25)

"On the Threshold of a Dream" was the first album that the Moody Blues had a chance to record and prepare in a situation of relative calm, without juggling tour schedules and stealing time in the studio between gigs - indeed, it was a product of what were almost ideal circumstances, though it might not have seemed that way to some observers. The Moodies had mostly exhausted the best parts of the song bag from which their two preceding albums, "Days of Future Passed" and "In Search of the Lost Chord", had been drawn, and as it turned out, even the leftover tracks from those sessions wouldn't pass muster for their next long-player project - but those albums had both been hits, and charted well in America as well as England, and had overlapped with a pair of hit singles, "Nights in White Satin" and "Tuesday Afternoon," on both sides of the Atlantic. Their success had earned them enough consideration from Decca Records that they could work at their leisure in the studio through all of January and most of February of 1969; what's more, with two LPs under their belt, they now had a much better idea of what they could accomplish in the studio, and write songs with that capability in mind. Equally important, they'd just come off of an extensive U.S. tour (opening for Cream) and had learned a lot in the course of concertizing over the previous year, achieving a much bolder yet tighter sound instrumentally as well as vocally, and they could now write to and for that sound as well. So this album is oozing with bright, splashy creative flourishes in two seemingly contradictory directions that somehow come together as a valid whole.

On the original LP's first side (which was the more rock-oriented side), the songs "Lovely to See You," "Send Me No Wine," "To Share Our Love," and "So Deep Within You" all featured killer guitar hooks (electric and acoustic) and fills by Justin Hayward; beautiful, muscular bass from John Lodge; and vocal hooks everywhere. It's also a surprisingly hard-rocking album considering the amount of overdubbing that went into perfecting the songs, including cellos, wind and reed instruments, and lots of vocal layers - yet it even found room to display a pop-soul edge on "So Deep Within You" (a number that the Four Tops later recorded). Side two was the more overtly ambitious of the two halves - after a pair of songs dominated by acoustic guitar and heavy Mellotron, "Never Comes the Day" and "Lazy Day" (the latter a piece of social commentary showing that Ray Thomas, at least, still remembered his roots in Birmingham), the remainder of the record was devoted to the most challenging body of music in the group's history. Justin Hayward's deliberately archaic "Are You Sitting Comfortably?," a piece that sounds almost 400 years out of its own time, evokes images out of medieval and Renaissance history laced with magic and mysticism, all set to Hayward's acoustic guitar and Thomas' flute, leading into Graeme Edge's poetic contribution, "The Dream," accompanied by Mike Pinder's Mellotrons in their most exposed appearance to date on a record. 

And all of that flows into Pinder's three-part suite, "Have You Heard, Pt. 1"/"The Voyage"/"Have You Heard, Pt. 2," a tour de force for the band - check out Edge's and Lodge's rock-solid playing on "Have You Heard" - and for Pinder, whose Mellotrons, in conjunction with Thomas' flute and supported by some overdubbed orchestral instruments, push the group almost prematurely into the realm of progressive rock. This synthesis of psychedelia and classical music, including a section featuring Pinder on grand piano, may sound overblown and pretentious today, but in 1969 this was envelope-ripping, genre-busting music, scaling established boundaries into unknown territory, not only "outside the box" but outside of any musical box that had been conceived at that moment - perhaps it can be considered rock's flirtation with the territory covered by works such as Alexander Scriabin's Mysterium, and if it overreached (as did Scriabin), well, so did a lot of other people at the time, including Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Who, et al. To show the difference in the times, the Moodies even brought this extended suite successfully to their concert repertory, and audiences devoured it at the time. Amazingly, "On the Threshold of a Dream" was their first chart-topping LP in England, and remained on the charts for an astonishing 70 weeks, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that the accompanying single, "Never Comes the Day" b/w "So Deep Within You," never charted at all. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

MOODIES' "In Search Of The Lost Chord"

Original released on LP  Deram SML 711

(UK, July 1968)

"In Search of the Lost Chord" is the album on which the Moody Blues discovered drugs and mysticism as a basis for songwriting and came up with a compelling psychedelic creation, filled with songs about Timothy Leary and the astral plane and other psychedelic-era concerns. They dumped the orchestra this time out in favor of Mike Pinder's Mellotron, which was a more than adequate substitute, and the rest of the band joined in with flutes, sitar, tablas, and cellos, the playing of which was mostly learned on the spot. The whole album was one big experiment to see how far the group could go with any instruments they could find, thus making this album a rather close cousin to the Beatles' records of the same era. It is all beautiful and elegant, and "Legend of a Mind"'s chorus about "Timothy Leary's dead/Oh, no - he's outside, looking in" ended up anticipating reality; upon his death in 1996, Leary was cremated and launched into space on a privately owned satellite, with the remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (another '60s pop culture icon) and other well-heeled clients. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

"The Magnificent Moodies" Special Edition

Original released on LP Decca LK 4711

(UK 1965, July 23)

The pre-psychedelic Moody Blues were represented in England by this album, which is steeped in American soul. The covers include songs by James Brown, Willie Dixon, and Chris Kenner, plus the chart-busting "Go Now" (originally recorded by Bessie Banks), interspersed with a brace of originals by lead singer/guitarist Denny Laine and keyboardist Mike Pinder, and one Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich number, "I've Got a Dream." The shouters, like "I'll Go Crazy" and "Bye Bye Bird," will be the big surprises, showcasing the rawest sound by the group, but "I've Got a Dream" shows a lyrical, harmony-based sound that is vaguely reminiscent of the Four Tops (which is ironic, as that group later cut a single of the latter-day Moody Blues original "So Deep Within You"), while "Thank You Baby," a Laine/Pinder original, offers them doing a smooth, dance-oriented number with some catchy hooks. The group's sound is good and loud, and Laine was a phenomenal singer, though the band lacked the charisma and built-in excitement of such rivals as the Rolling Stones and the Animals. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)

The US Cover

MOODY BLUES: "Days Of Future Passed"

Original released on LP Deram SML 707

(UK, November 1967)

Com Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas e Graeme Edge, a segunda encarnação dos Moody Blues reunia os elementos necessários para atingir o enorme sucesso que viria a concretizar-se logo neste álbum de estreia, para depois prosseguir numa heptologia histórica, que reuniu 7 albuns fundamentais entre 1967 e 1972. O contrato dos Moodies com a Decca estava a terminar e eles estavam a dever algum dinheiro por adiantamentos que a gravadora entretanto lhes fizera. Para compensar esse débito, o director artístico da Decca, Hugh Mendl, propôs-lhes gravarem um projecto inovador para testar o novo sistema de som, "Deramic Stereo Sound", que iria ser lançado no novo selo da companhia, Deram. O projecto consistia numa versão Rock da "Sinfonia do Novo Mundo" do compositor clássico Antonio Dvorak, acompanhados por uma orquestra sinfónica dirigida por Peter Knight. O projecto não seguiu em frente, porque os Moody Blues contrapropuseram um projecto idêntico, mas com composições da sua autoria e tiveram o apoio do arranjador e maestro Peter Knight e da London Festival Orchestra. Nasceu assim esta sua primeira obra-prima, "Days Of Future Passed".

Aproveitando o sucesso que os Beatles tinham tido alguns meses antes, com o album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", os Moody Blues criaram também um album conceptual, que nos conta o dia a dia do homem comum, passando pelas várias fases do dia desde o amanhecer até à noite cerrada. "Days Of Future Passed" é um album de rock progressivo, com a fusão musical de orquestração e composição clássica com o Rock, que se inicia com o tema "The Day Begins", creditado a Redwave/Knight, (na realidade Redwave é um avatar que os membros dos Moody Blues usaram para identificar a composição em que todos contribuíram e Knight, por ter sido o maestro Peter Knight que teve a seu cargo a orquestração).

GLÓRIA MATINAL
O Universo de coração frio, que governa a noite,
Remove as cores da nossa vista.
O vermelho é cinza e o amarelo é branco,
Mas nós decidimos o que é o real
E o que é uma ilusão.
Buracos estreitos num céu incolor
Deixam cintilações insípidas de passagem de luz por eles.
A poderosa luz de dez mil sóis
Desafia o infinito e logo desaparece.
A noite, para alguns um breve interlúdio,
Para os outros o medo da solidão.
Bravo Helios, acorda os teus corcéis
E traz o calor que o campo precisa.

Depois de "The Day Begins", segue-se o amanhecer com "Dawn: Dawn Is a Feeling", uma composição de Mike Pinder. Ao amanhecer segue-se naturalmente a manhã: "The Morning: Another Morning", de Ray Thomas. A passagem da manhã para a tarde, vem com o meio-dia e o intervalo de almoço, "Lunch Break: Peak Hour", composta por John Lodge. O lado B do album começa como a segunda parte de qualquer dia - a tarde: "The Afternoon: Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)", uma linda composição de Justin Hayward. Seguidamente chega o entardecer numa mescla do pôr do sol com o crepúsculo, "Evening: The Sunset (composta por Mike Pinder) / Twilight (de John Lodge)". Finalmente chega a noite, "The Night: Nights In White Satin", a extraordinária composição de Justin Hayward, que termina com mais uma orquestração musical de Peter Knight em cima de outro poema de Graeme Edge: "Late Lament" e que se esvai com um prolongado som de um gongo gigante, que representa a longa noite de espera até que o dia recomece e como sempre se repita diariamente, desde o longínquo passado até ao eterno futuro. O album "Days Of Future Passed" ajuda a reconhecermo-nos no dia a dia da nossa vida, de uma forma musicalmente perfeita e que será eternamente um clássico, não só do Rock, mas de toda a música de grande qualidade. (in "Onda Pop")

LAMENTO TARDIO
Respirem profundamente a melancolia
Até verem as luzes desaparecerem em todos os quartos.
As pessoas que dormem, olham para trás e lamentam-se
Da energia que gastaram inùtilmente durante mais um dia.

Amantes apaixonados agarram-se entre si.
O homem solitário chora por amor e não tem nenhum.
A recente mãe pega ao colo e amamenta o seu filho.
Os idosos desejam que ainda fossem jovens.

O Universo de coração frio, que governa a noite,
Remove as cores da nossa vista.
O vermelho é cinza e o amarelo é branco,
Mas nós decidimos o que é o real
E o que é uma ilusão.

This album marked the formal debut of the psychedelic-era Moody Blues; though they'd made a pair of singles featuring new (as of 1966) members Justin Hayward and John Lodge, "Days of Future Passed" was a lot bolder and more ambitious. What surprises first-time listeners - and delighted them at the time -- is the degree to which the group shares the spotlight with the London Festival Orchestra without compromising their sound or getting lost in the lush mix of sounds. That's mostly because they came to this album with the strongest, most cohesive body of songs in their history, having spent the previous year working up a new stage act and a new body of material (and working the bugs out of it on-stage), the best of which ended up here. Decca Records had wanted a rock version of Dvorak's "New World Symphony" to showcase its enhanced stereo-sound technology, but at the behest of the band, producer Tony Clarke (with engineer Derek Varnals aiding and abetting) hijacked the project and instead cut the group's new repertory, with conductor/arranger Peter Knight adding the orchestral accompaniment and devising the bridge sections between the songs' and the album's grandiose opening and closing sections. 

The record company didn't know what to do with the resulting album, which was neither classical nor pop, but following its release in December of 1967, audiences found their way to it as one of the first pieces of heavily orchestrated, album-length psychedelic rock to come out of England in the wake of the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's..." and "Magical Mystery Tour" albums. What's more, it was refreshingly original, rather than an attempt to mimic the Beatles; sandwiched among the playful lyricism of "Another Morning" and the mysticism of "The Sunset," songs like "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Twilight Time" (which remained in their concert repertory for three years) were pounding rockers within the British psychedelic milieu, and the harmony singing (another new attribute for the group) made the band's sound unique. With "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Nights in White Satin" to drive sales, "Days of Future Passed" became one of the defining documents of the blossoming psychedelic era, and one of the most enduringly popular albums of its era. (Bruce Eder in AllMusic)