On October 1, 1971, the yet-to-be-married couple who would become my parents drove down from Berkeley to the Arena to see the Moody Blues for the third time. Every Good Boy Deserved Favour had been released only a couple of months before the concert, and they had bought the album on the first day of availability. Both of them had a favorite song from the album that they hoped to hear live in addition to “The Story in Your Eyes,” which they assumed would make the playlist because it was the lead single. My dad hoped to hear John Lodge’s “One More Time to Live,” while my mother went with Ray Thomas and “Our Guessing Game.”
They were delighted that both of their favorites made the cut. When the Moodies exited the stage after closing with a roaring performance of “Ride My See-Saw” and people started heading for the exits, they stayed in their seats for a while, savoring the experience and sharing their thoughts and feelings about the concert. They agreed on one point in particular: that Ray Thomas nearly stole the show with his exceptionally strong vocal performance on “Our Guessing Game” and his spirited contributions on unison vocals and the flute. Once they realized they were the only people besides the cleanup crew left in the arena, they made their way to the parking lot . . . and forgot where they parked the car.
Fortunately for them, the experience turned out to be serendipitous because during the search for their wheels, who should they run into but Ray Thomas! He was also strolling across the lot, holding hands with a lovely woman and wearing a smile on his face. My future father stopped in his tracks, dumbstruck and unable to speak, but my future mother walked right up to Ray, thanked him for his performance, and asked him a question or two about his flute techniques. He smiled, thanked her in return, answered her questions and wished them both a lovely evening before wandering off with his mate.
As for the car, they found it after the mescaline started to wear off.
I questioned them further on the concert and learned that the Moodies covered at least one song from their previous albums and four from Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Both agreed that those four songs were the highlight of the evening. “They played the hell out of those songs—you could feel the energy rise several notches,” opined my father. “I agree. You could tell that they took great pride in those compositions,” my mother added. Both said that they wished they had performed the entire album, as it was their favorite of the classic seven.
Not everyone shares their positive assessment. Progressive reviews qualify as “mixed,” but progressives had always doubted the Moodies’ progressive credentials. Sputnik Music described the album as “An enjoyable, if middling, progressive rock snack” that is “as good an example as any of the strengths, and shortcomings, of this much-loved classic rock band.” On the plus side, Bruce Eder of All Music described it as “The best-realized of their classic albums,” but the most surprising endorsement came in the form of a glowing review from a rag that had previously damned the group as “a fine, tight English rock group (that) has chosen to strangle itself in contextual goo.”
The Moody Blues were a unique group even before a member of the US ping pong team brought one of their albums into China. More than any other successful group, including the early Beatles, they are leaderless. All five members are poets and composers who contribute equally to the production of about one album of original material every ten months. Each album has been a worthy product. The latest offering is no exception . . .
In short, if you’re still listening to your old Moody Blues albums there’s not a reason in the world that you won’t like this one. They’re still the Sistine Chapel of popular music.
While I prefer to avoid classifying any album as “best,” my take on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour is closer in spirit to the views expressed by Eder, Werbin, and my parents. More than any Moodies album to date, EBGDF highlights the individual songwriting abilities of the five “poets and composers.” The group’s decision to forgo another attempt at creating a concept album gave each member the freedom to write about what was important to them without having to worry about linking the compositions to an overall theme. That may sound like a recipe for disaster with everyone going off in different directions, but the collaborative spirit of the album is obvious in the significant contributions made by all of the members on each other’s songs. In the end, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour achieves the goal of nearly every form of art: the perfect balance between unity and variation.
*****
Side One
“Procession” (All): The only collaborative composition on the album is the first credited to all the band members. In the SACD liner notes Graeme Edge described the intent: “We had nerve in those days! We decided that we could create a piece that would show the history of musical evolution. We began by making grunting sounds and hitting hollow logs, and this evolved into both Eastern music and eventually Western music.” I would characterize Graeme’s summary as the short-and-sweet version typically found in interviews with rock stars, full of omissions and exaggerations.
The piece begins with a well-designed mellotron passage that evokes images of a lonely, lifeless planet in the backwaters of the Milky Way. The picture becomes clearer when we hear howling winds followed by a chorus of male voices shouting, “Desolation!” Soon we hear a mighty thunderclap and the sounds of rain, leading the chorus to shout “Creation!” as abiogenesis kicks in to create the first living cells. After a clever bit of foreshadowing where we hear a piano playing the pattern E-G-B-D-F, we skip centuries of evolution to find ourselves in the Neolithic Age, when dinosaurs had turned into birds and primitive humans in forested areas invented long-distance communication by pounding drums and hollow logs. This development triggers a more muted response from the chorus as they vocalize the word “Communication.” As the beats go on, we hear primitive humans grunting to the rhythm of the drums, the first step in the path that will lead them to create music. The drums disappear, and now we hear the Neanderthals moving from grunts to simple melodies.
Humans had actually begun messing around with one-string instruments prior to the Neolithic Age, but since none of those songs made the Hit Parade, we fast-forward once again to 17th-century India and the sounds of the sitar and predecessors of the flute. Shifting from east to west, the next segment chronicles the move from pastoral music (recorder) to composed music in baroque and liturgical styles (harpsichord and organ) to orchestral (mellotron backed by “timpani”). Jazz fans will be disappointed to find their music erased from the “history of musical evolution,” as the Moodies take a giant step over the first sixty years of the 20th Century and go straight to rock with a slightly distorted guitar riff from Justin Hayward backed by Graeme’s thunderous drum machine. In their defense, covering all the musical traditions preceding the advent of rock would have required the Moodies to make a double album with “Procession” taking up all of side one.
All is forgiven once you realize that “Procession” serves multiple purposes. In addition to the survey of musical development and the emphasis on music as a form of communication, that closing guitar riff tells us that the Moodies are getting ready to rock the fuck out!
“The Story in Your Eyes” (Hayward): The intro begins as “Procession” fades, and Justin designed one of the best-crafted introductions of all time. Opening with a nasty riff on his Cherry Red ES-335 Gibson, he switches gears to double-tracked acoustic guitar, establishing the upbeat tempo using the open-tuning chord pattern of Am-Bm7add11/A-Dadd9/A, accompanied by a thin layer of feedback set to an A note. The tension builds for a few rounds until John Lodge and Graeme Edge come out of nowhere with a paired rhythmic figure followed immediately by a one-chord scream from Justin’s Gibson. The three musicians join together in a high heat repetition of the initial chord pattern, and after another thrust from Lodge and Graeme, Justin steps up to the mike, delivering his vocal with a certain detachment in the midst of the rock ‘n’ roll storm swirling all around him.
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 sameAnd the sound we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It’s been shining down upon you now
I realize
In an interview with Joe Matera on Guitar Player (where you can also learn about the technical aspects of the guitar arrangement), Justin was rather coy about the meaning of the lyrics:
The song’s lyrical theme, while somewhat ambiguous, is also less mystical than the group’s previous efforts, with allusions to a relationship that endures, despite difficulty and strain. “It’s always about a love affair, isn’t it?” Hayward says with a laugh. “I wish I could tell you more, but some of that is private.”
While the verse may seem a bit opaque, I immediately related to “And the sound we make together/Is the music to the story in your eyes.” When people ask me what part of the human body I find most compelling, I have always answered, “The eyes.” Communication via the eyes is nearly always more revealing than words—you can tell when the music is clicking and you can tell when it’s not. Justin is aware that he and his mate have gone through a rough patch, but the music in her eyes tells him that the love for one another is undamaged, and they can build on that foundation.
Though the chord pattern in the verses begins with an Am chord, the actual key is G major, the chord of resolution. I mention this because in the bridge, Justin shifts to the minor twin (E minor), coloring the lyrics with faint hints of doubt while Pinder’s mellotron enters the picture to intensify the underlying emotions:
Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We’re part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day
The doubt is explained in the subsequent verse, where Justin admits the possibility that the two might not be able to come together after all.
But I’m frightened for your children
That the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we’ve been waiting for
Will turn to rain
Justin shakes off the blues by launching a ripping guitar solo, ending on the notes previously assigned to Lodge in the rhythmic transition. After a repeat of the doubt-filled bridge and verse, Justin shifts back to the optimism expressed in the opening verse, envisioning a future where refuge in a relationship awaits:
When the final line is over
And it’s certain that the curtain’s gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet, sweet love
Forevermore
My interpretation is based on the belief that “The Story in Your Eyes” is about saving a relationship that is worth saving, but Justin claimed that other things were on his mind when he wrote the song:
And while “The Story in Your Eyes” is a stellar example of both Hayward’s songcraft and the Moody Blues’ endurance as a hit-making group, as Hayward explains the song’s lyrics contain a clue to the band’s impending, if temporary, breakup, from 1974 to 1977, due to the strains of their increasingly larger and more difficult tours. “Despite its personal nature, ‘The Story in Your Eyes’ is also kind of about the band,” Hayward reveals, citing the lyrics, “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.” (Guitar Player interview).
If that was the case, I think Justin cited the wrong lines. “When the final line is over/And it’s certain that the curtain’s gonna fall” feels more prescient and to-the-point. Those lines also make for a better fit because of the immediate connection to “I can hide inside your sweet, sweet love forevermore.” The interview took place in 2024, so we can’t be sure if Justin’s second take is something he felt at the time, an underlying feeling that took years to rise to the surface, or an attempt at historical revisionism.
Here’s the thing: there are very few kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll songs that qualify as “beautiful,” and the relationship interpretation preserves the beauty of “The Story in Your Eyes,” while the alternative does not. Ergo, I’m going to stick to my interpretation and classify Justin’s revised take as Monday-morning quarterbacking . . . which is a very painful thing for me to do because I fucking hate American football.
“Our Guessing Game” (Thomas): In our last episode of the Moody Blues, we found Ray in a dour mood due to a communication breakdown in his marriage. The aural and written evidence of a mood change can be found in his two excellent contributions to EGBDF. “Our Guessing Game” is an attempt to make sense of a world that refuses to make sense, leaving the inhabitants in a constant state of ambiguity. As is true for many of us today, Ray searches for relief from constant uncertainty, straddling the line between optimism and pessimism as events play out. Although he never comes close to offering a solution, he remains determined to play the guessing game, hoping to replace ambiguity with reliable truths.
The song begins with Mike Pinder displaying his sensitive feel for the piano, playing a melody that falls somewhere between wistful and melancholic. Ray echoes those moods in his vocal, delivering his lines in a contemplative tone, backed by an arrangement set to a slow build mixing piano, mellotron, horns, and kick drum punctuation. The build leads to a mini-chorus where Ray adds harmony to his lead vocal via double-tracking. His determination is not immediately apparent in the opening verse, and his initial response to our nonsensical world is so very, very human: “I wanna get the fuck outta here!” Alas, there are always obstacles in the way of escape (a truth that many Americans face today when they think about emigration), so there’s little to do except continue to play the guessing game:
Walking in the sand
Thinking of things, adventures in my mind
Tall ships that sail across the ocean wide
They won’t wait for me
See how they glide away so gracefully
And with tomorrow what will become of me?
It leaves me so much to explain
That’s the start of our guessing game
The arrangement becomes more intense on those last two lines with a rising horn figure backing Ray’s vocals. What follows is the true chorus, best described as a prayer, literally and musically. The latter is achieved through an intricate arrangement of call-and-response vocals combined with lyrical and background harmonies somewhat reminiscent of the music you might hear if you stumbled into an evangelical church on a Sunday. Now, y’all know that I’m not the praying type, but if I were, this is the prayer I would sing every night before bedtime:
There are times when I think I’ve found the truth
There are times when I know that I’m wrong
And the days when I try to hide my fears
Bless the days when I’m feeling strong
Bless the days when I’m feeling strong
That, my friends, is one brilliant description of the human condition.
The chorus arrangement continues through the bridge, where Ray questions the value of playing the guessing game:
Wonder why we try so hard
Wonder why we try at all
You wonder why the world is turning around
In the end it won’t matter at all
I think we all feel that way sometimes, and after a stereo guitar solo from Justin, Ray seems to hint that “it won’t matter at all” because there are too many human beings who allow the rat race to control their lives and turn to cynicism in the process:
Standing in the town
Looking at people, counting their frowns
Unhappy faces hurrying around
So blind they cannot see
All of the things, the way life ought to be
And with tomorrow what will they make of me?
It leaves me so much to explain
That’s the start of our guessing game
Fortunately, the song closes with three consecutive renditions of the more optimistic conclusion expressed in the prayer. Truth is hard to come by; humans make mistakes and repress their fears, but we need to make the most of those days when we’re feeling strong.
“Emily’s Song” (Lodge): John Lodge had firmly established himself as a friend to children on “Eyes of a Child,” insisting that seeing the world through a child’s eyes can lead to greater understanding. At that point in his life, he was childless; two years later, he and his wife Kirsten welcomed their first child into the world, a daughter they named Emily. It’s easy to think of a child as a bundle of joy if you’ve never had one, and many parents bitch about how much work it is to deal with a baby and the disruptions to their sleeping habits and sex lives.
Not John Lodge. By all accounts he was a loving, caring and thoughtful parent who made his children feel loved and valued. Not an easy feat for a rock star with a heavy touring schedule, but John Lodge was a true Christian and an apostle of love. He believed in faith and family, and confirmed his belief by living it on a daily basis. In a possibly unauthorized narrated version of Emily’s eulogy to her father on YouTube, the speaker noted that Emily was “The one who sat on his lap during rehearsals, who fell asleep backstage to the sound of his bass, who knew the man behind the spotlight better than the world ever could.” Even when he was halfway across the planet, John would fly home to see Emily in the school play. John and Kirsten lived happily together for fifty-seven years and always put family first.
In this ode to Emily, John shows respect for his newborn and never dismisses her attempts at communication as worthless gibberish, promising her that he will do his best to understand her “language”:
Lovely to know the warmth
Your smile can bring to me.
I want to tell you,
But the words you do not know.Sing me a lullaby
Of songs you cannot write
And I will listen for there’s beauty
Where there’s love.And in the morning of my life,
And in the evening of my day
I will try to understand in what you say.
He goes far beyond treating her as an equal and admits he could learn a lot from her:
Take me into your world,
Alone I cannot go
For I’ve been here so long.
You’re leaving me behind.
Walk with me now
Into your land of fairy tales
And open up that book of pages in my mind
I know that some people who are aware of my exceptionally close relationship with my parents think it’s weird, but they treated me the same way when I was a child, and I have always considered them my best friends. I wish everyone could have parents like John and Kirsten or mine.
The music is so very, very beautiful that I tear up every time I listen to it. The main vocal pairing Lodge as lead singer with Justin supplying the harmonies is gentle and caring, Lodge’s thrusts on the cello add a certain warmth to the arrangement, and Mike Pinder’s gentle touch on the celeste evokes the innocence of childhood and the corresponding sense of wonder.
“After You Came” (Edge): Mini-review: Music great, lyrics not-so-great.
In a vain attempt to re-imagine the frequently-explored theme of life in a rocky relationship, Graeme occasionally fell prey to the sin of over-poeticization, resulting in awkward rhyme schemes and unnecessarily elaborate similes that leave the listener wondering what the hell he was talking about. Fortunately for posterity, those missteps only appear in a few stanzas and his mates cover up the flaws by singing with enthusiasm. Even better, Graeme designed a composition built to rock like there’s no tomorrow that also turned out to be perfectly suitable for a vocal quartet.
Justin opens the song with hearty strumming on his acoustic guitar, nimbly moving his fingers to present the basic melody, chord pattern and rhythm all in one tidy package. After a whack from Edge, the quartet of Thomas-Pinder-Hayward-Lodge delivers the opening lines in unison, with Edge keeping the beat. A light touch of mellotron enters the fray at the start of the third line, the second layer in what will turn out to be a thrilling build. Each line ends with a full rest followed by a light cymbal crash, adding a touch of syncopation to the rhythm. The lyrics find Edge trying to convince his partner to settle down and “get back to the basics of love,” a la
Since it began I got one dream and really it’s my only blessing:
If I can come through then so can you and you will find there’s no regretting.
Things that you want from your life’s font will never let your spirit roam,
Come back to Earth for what it’s worth for you’ve been dreaming of a ceiling not a home.
The vocals rise slightly on that closing line, then WHAM! Justin crashes the party with a quick A-G-A sequence on his distortion-enhanced Gibson, dropping to E for the transition to the bridge. In an utterly brilliant move, each of the quartet members delivers a single line before passing the baton to the next guy:
Thomas: I’ve been doing my best:
Pinder: What else can I do?
Hayward: Is there something I’ve missed
Lodge: That will help me through?
The Moodies maintain the heat on the subsequent couplet (a “mini-verse,” if you will), adding a cello to the mix as Graeme shifts to a shuffle beat. The singers return to unison to deliver Graeme’s Humpty Dumpty metaphor, confirming the fragile nature of the relationship: “I’ve reached the top of my wall/And all I’ve found is another way to fall.”
From here, the composition shifts to the key of B minor for yet another bridge. I have no problems with the segment from a musical standpoint; the singers give it all they’ve got, and Justin’s supporting counterpoint on electric guitar works like a charm. From a lyrical standpoint . . . well, the first two lines are okay, but the simile falls flat on its face:
For some short time for a while you and I were joined to eternity,
Then we split in two, back to me and you,
Like the rain
Rising from the sea,
Rising from the sea.
I guess Graeme was trying to tell us that the relationship had gone upside-down, but I think something grounded in reality would have worked much better. The next rendition of the verse + bridge combines the previously mentioned substandard rhyme scheme with a more direct approach that lands with far greater impact:
But all can see what we shall be, but knowing’s really not controlling.
With time, perhaps, I’ll pass the traps and find some peace and understanding.
After you’d come and while you’re gone you leave me guessing — it’s depressing,
Never to know the way to go to find some time along a little less pressing.Thomas: So you just have to laugh
Pinder: When it hurts so much.
Hayward: You’re so far away
Lodge: And so hard to touch.
The Moodies then repeat the first four stanzas while continuing to rock as hard as they can. I love the way they vary the syncopated moment by replacing the silence with a clever bass run from Mr. Lodge. Much to my delight, they chose to keep on rocking in an extended fade with rough rhythm guitar, no-bullshit bass and a few fabulous guitar riffs from the lead guitarist. Despite my lyrical concerns, “After You Came” is a solid, kick-ass rocker, and I wasn’t at all surprised when my parents told me it was one of the highlights of the concert.
Side Two
“One More Time to Live” (Lodge): This unusual composition continues to explore a theme first exposed in A Question of Balance: “After a decade of peace and love, it still seemed we hadn’t made a difference in 1970.” We can add “or in 1971,” as the Vietnam War dragged on with no signs of ending. I had a fairly good idea as to why my father wanted to hear this song in concert, but just to be sure, I checked in with him. “I wanted to hear that song more than any other because it reminded me that no matter how hard we tried to convince people of the importance of togetherness, the men in charge continued to go to war and violate the planet while doing little to help people in need of help. It inspired me to stay in the fight.” He paused for a moment, sighed, then continued. “We wanted to help create a better world for the children and we blew it, and now I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see that better world.” I snuggled up next to him for a while as tears of regret fell from his eyes. I wished with all my heart that I could restore his hope, but given the rapidly declining state of life on Earth, I was unable to provide him with any comfort or soothe his wounds.
The song begins disarmingly with a lovely duet featuring Justin on acoustic guitar and Ray on flute, establishing a reflective, pastoral mood. The duet shifts to counterpoint when John makes his entry, delivering the lines in a calm, delicate voice.
Look out of my window
See the world passing by,
See the look in her eye.
In the next verse, Justin adds harmonies to John’s vocal. The music gradually rises in volume and intensity, with Mike Pinder’s mellotron providing most of the heft. The narrative moves from observation to reflection in a series of random thoughts that cross John’s mind as he considers the world and his place in it.
One more time to live and I have made it mine.
Leave the wise to write for they write worldly rhymes
And he who wants to fight begins the end of time . . .
For I have riches more than these.
For I have riches more than these.
Suddenly we hear voices shouting “Desolation!” What follows is a deeper dive into the arc of human development presented in “Progression,” further enhanced by vocal reactions to each step in the form of questions, cries for answers, and personal reflections. The recital is largely focused on impending dangers and examples of inhumanity, but when we reach the “Contemplation” stage, the mood brightens as the response shifts to “Changes in my life,” carrying the message that systemic change begins with individual self-reflection that will eventually lead to Communication, Compassion and Solution. In other words, it’s up to us to save the world, and that can only happen if we stop the “my way or the highway” bullshit and make a concerted effort to engage in honest, respectful dialogue with our fellow human beings. The supporting music is intense, a collage of mellotron, bass, tambourine and vocal layers galore, ending with a return to the pastoral on the word “Solution.”
Desolation
Creation (Tell me someone why there’s only confusion?)
Evolution (Tell me someone why this is all an illusion?)
Pollution (Tell me someone)
Saturation (Tell me someone)
Population
Annihilation
Revolution (Tell me someone why this talk of revolution?)
Confusion (Tell me someone when we’re changing evolution?)
Illusion (Tell me someone)
Conclusion (Tell me someone)
Starvation
Degradation
Humiliation
Contemplation (Changes in my life)
Inspiration
Elation (Changes in my life)
Salvation (Changes in my life)
Communication
Compassion
Solution
The second pastoral passage focuses on the environment and the short-sighted, greed-motivated destruction of the planet.
Look out on the hedgerow
As the world rushes by.
Hear the birds sing a sigh.One more tree will fall, how strong the growing vine.
Turn the earth to sand and still commit no crime.
How one thought will live provide the others die,
For I have riches more than these.
For I have riches more than these.
I love the line “Hear the birds sing a sigh,” because I’ve always felt that our animal friends have figured out that humans are morons and represent an ever-present danger to all life on Earth.
The Moodies apparently felt it was important to repeat the recital, and given the stupidity of the human race, I find it hard to disagree. The song closes where it began, with John looking out the window, watching the world passing by . . . likely hoping that the world will still be there for a long, long time.
Dad, I know you’re going to read this, and I want you to know that I love you and I will do my damnedest to make the world safe for those living today and for generations to come.
“Nice to Be Here” (Thomas): Depending on your orientation, you might feel overwhelmed by all the negative forces exposed in “One More Time to Live” and find yourself in desperate need of a break from pollution, annihilation, degradation and confusion. Well, lucky for you, Ray Thomas has the perfect antidote to nagging, chronic negativity.
“Nice to Be Here” is a whimsical tale inspired by Ray’s passion for fishing and spending time enjoying the beauty of a natural setting. In an interview with Jason Barnard of The Strange Brew, Ray recalled how the song came to be:
“The other song that I got inspiration more or less the same was ‘Nice To Be Here’ which is one the favourite songs that I wrote. I used to camp out by a lake a week at a time fishing. At first all the wildlife buggers off but after you’ve been there for a few days they realise that you’re not any threat to them. They run all over your feet, I’ve even had kingfishers landing on the end of my rod. I also used to like writing kids songs like ‘Another Morning’ on ‘Days of Future Passed’. So I got a great kick out of writing ‘Lovely weather must climb a tree.’ I was a little kid again. And I just went through a band really, ‘Silver minnows were devising. Water ballet so surprising.’ I asked Justin if he could play the solo on just one string as I had a frog strumming a banjo on one string. He tried it out and he couldn’t make it on one string but he made it on two!”
You may find a song about imagining the wildlife coming together to form a band rather childish, but I think that’s the point: to help adults connect with the inner child and view the world from “the eyes of a child.” Ray’s approach is fully validated by Stephen Nachmanovitch in his book Free Play:
There is an old Sanskrit word, Lila (Leela), which means play. Richer than our word, it means divine play, the play of creation and destruction and re-creation, the folding and unfolding of the cosmos. Lila, free and deep, is both delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love. Lila may be the simplest thing there is—spontaneous, childish, disarming. But as we grow and experience the complexities of life, it may also be the most difficult and hard won achievement imaginable, and its coming to fruition is a kind of homecoming to our true selves.”
Ray establishes the core melody with his flute in the two-part introduction, first in solo form, then in stereo, combining melody and harmony with added support from the rhythm section. The melody is repeated frequently throughout the piece with varied instrumentation, tightening the composition. The playfulness of the arrangement is best expressed in the responses from the band members to the lyrical cues. “To a frog sat strumming/On a guitar with only one string” triggers a hot guitar riff from Justin; “With Jack Rabbit loudly drumming/On the side of a biscuit tin” earns a muscular drum riff from Graeme. My favorite verses are those near the end of the song, where Ray’s imagination links with his musical instincts to create a scene that belongs in a Disney film:
I know you won’t believe me
But I’m certain that I did see
A mouse playing daffodil.
All the band was really jumping
With Jack Rabbit in there thumping.
I found that I couldn’t sit still.I just had to make it with them
‘Cause they play my kind of rhythm
And the bees hummed in harmony
And the owl played his oboe
Then the frog’s guitar solo
It was all too much for me . . .
I’ll close with a word to the wise: we are never going the save the world through conflict and seriousness, or through us-against-them. We have a much better shot if we embrace the D.H. Lawrence concept of a “revolution for fun.”
“You Can Never Go Home” (Hayward): In a 2016 interview quoted on Wikipedia, Justin explained the motivation behind this song. “I remember what I was going through emotionally then—I was losing people and there was a lot of grief around my life.” I have no reason to question that assertion, but he short-changes himself in the process. It’s important to note that he married the woman who would become his lifelong companion during the recording of EGBDF because it helps to understand the emotional oscillation between mourning and optimism expressed in the lyrics. The song is really about Justin finding his way by leaving the past behind and opening pathways to a new life. As is true of all changes, there will be plenty of twists and turns along the way, reflected here in the multiple changes in mood, form, melody, and chord patterns, but everything will come up roses in the end.
Opening in relative stillness in a background of acoustic guitar, light bass, and single notes on the lower reaches of the piano, we find Justin feeling untethered and uncertain about his life:
I don’t know what I’m searching for;
I never have opened the door.
Tomorrow might find me at last
Turning my back on the past
The word “might” indicates indecision—understandable indecision in this case. It’s hard to leave the past behind with all its connections and memories, whatever the circumstances. If the link to the past involves the death of a parent or loved one, you grieve the loss but find it difficult to let go on an emotional level; if you choose to make a break with the past for other reasons, you face a long period of transition from what you knew to the relative unknown. All change involves some form of grief, even positive changes.
The music to the first half of the chorus feels like an awakening moment, with Pinder’s mellotron bringing in the sunlight and Justin supplying his vocal with growing strength. The boys tone things down midway through, giving Justin plenty of space to share his realization that there is no going back to the past:
But time will tell of stars that fell
A million years ago.
Memories can never take you back home, sweet home,
You can never go home anymore.
The Moodies celebrate the moment with a blast of blues rock featuring an assertive riff from Justin that screams, “I’ve got it now!” His mates join him in the transition lines in another marvelous display of modern choral singing, celebrating the moment of enlightenment as one:
All my life I never really knew me ’til today.
Now I know why, I’m just another step along the way.
Next we shift to another bridge involving a new chord pattern, rhythm and background music to allow Justin to spend a few quiet moments with his love interest, where he shares his hard-won insights about life and love.
I lie awake for hours, just waiting for the sun.
When the journey we are making has begun
Don’t deny the feeling that is stealing through your heart,
Every happy ending needs to have a start.
After a repetition of the celebratory bridge, Justin returns to his partner to confirm his commitment to a new life they can share together:
Weep no more for treasures you’ve been searching for in vain
‘Cos the truth is gently falling with the rain,
High above the forest lie the pastures of the sun
Where the two that learned the secret now are one.
The song goes full circle, repeating the opening verse and bridge, which allows Justin to end the song by reminding himself, “You can never go home anymore.” Those words now take on a completely different meaning as he moves to the final stage of grief: acceptance.
For obvious reasons, I have a strong connection with this song, and though I would rate leaving the USA and renouncing my citizenship as two of the best decisions I’ve ever made, the first three years were not easy, even with the presence of family in Paris and Nice. Though I had visited both cities several times, visiting is not living there, and I soon realized that it would take time to get used to certain cultural norms of which I was unaware. I missed my friends, I missed the Seattle music scene, I missed live baseball, and goddamn, I really wanted a decent hamburger with all the trimmings. I can thank Donald Trump for helping me make a complete break with the States, and nine years after my renunciation, the realization that I can never go home anymore is A-OK with me.
Anyway, thank you, Justin, for your emotional honesty and this wonderful piece of music.
“My Song” (Pinder): The album closer is part song and part mellotron-driven tone poem. We’ll look at the song first.
I have no direct evidence to support this hypothesis but I get the sense that the song is partly a response to detractors who poked fun at the Moody Blues and their “Kumbaya” music— like the asshole who included this slam in the Sputnik music review mentioned above: “The profundity of The Moody Blues’ belief system basically boils down to this: All you need is love. Or as Pinder puts it in the album-closing “My Song.” “Love can change the world/Love can change your life/Do what makes you happy/Do what you know is right”. Can I get a “Kumbaya” here?”
That review was written in 2017. One would think that Moody-bashing would have disappeared by then, but many members of my generation think nihilism gives you street cred. We know that many leading critics dismissed the Moody Blues during their active years, and I’m sure Mike Pinder and the other Moodies were fully aware of the bad press. Mike’s response in “My Song” essentially tells the naysayers to piss off, but he phrases it with a bit more class. Shortly after opening the song with the mellotron presenting the main motif, Mike switches to gentle piano to deliver his never-say-die message:
I’m going to sing my song,
And sing it all day long,
A song that never ends.
How can I tell you
All the things inside my head?
The change in these past years
Has made me see our world
In many different ways.
How can I tell you
Love can change our destiny?
An assertive drum fill from Graeme signals a mood shift as Pinder delivers the lines dissed in the Sputnik review. The “critic” left out the two most important lines at the end of the verse: “And love with all your might/Before it’s too late.” You may ask, “What kind of person living on a planet headed for self-destruction would disagree with that?” and I would answer, “The haters, the selfish, the people who care only about themselves, and today, the climate change deniers.” We are running out of time, people! In the last verse before the tone poem, Mike expresses the hope that beings from faraway planets might come to assist us, but as I said before, it’s unlikely they would bother with a planet stuck in reverse.
Tone poems are tricky creatures because the goal of a tone poem is to visualize images, evoke moods, and express ideas through music alone. Unlike a film score, there are no images or dialogue to help you translate the music, so each of us will have different interpretations of what the composer is attempting to achieve. What I hear first is an acoustic guitar played in Spanish style, calling up memories of Madrid and Seville. A crescendo of harp and mellotron that mimics the music of a dream sequence in a film makes me feel happy and hopeful, but in a split second, that mood is obliterated by a crushing explosion of mellotron followed by martial drums that trigger fear and anxiety. I calm down a bit when the drums go away, but when the mellotron disappears and I hear what sounds like someone having breathing difficulty, I feel impending danger. That sense of danger is calmed somewhat by the beautiful sound of the flute, which at first calls up images of natural beauty, but as the pattern continues, the sense of melancholy increases, and it feels like the sky is darkening. An explosion ten times stronger than the first opens the way to an extended dark sequence that feels destructive, cruel, and relentless—images of doom. When the poem ends, I get the sense that Mike was using music to show us what the world would feel like if we fail to act before it’s too late. His presentation of armageddon imbues the final verse with undeniable urgency:
One day I hope we’ll be in perfect harmony,
A planet with one mind
Then I could tell you
All the things inside my head.
I’m going to sing my song,
And sing it all day long,
A song that never ends.
How can I tell you
All the things inside my head?
Of course, you may hear something completely different when you listen to the piece, and that’s fine by me. In any case, “My Song” was the perfect ending to the album, reminding listeners that the Moodies were sincere about the power of love and would stick to their beliefs no matter what the cynics had to say.
*****
I rarely run across an album where every track is a keeper, but such is the case with Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. The songwriting is excellent, the collaborative nature of the band is on full display, and the arrangements are thoughtful and uniquely powerful. Unfortunately, the aftermath exposed a downside, as Bruce Eder noted in his review: “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.” I’ll review that worthwhile album and wrap up my look at the classic seven before the year’s end.