I finished writing this review the day before the news of John Lodge’s passing, leaving Justin Hayward as the only core band member still with us. John Lodge will be remembered not only for his superb musicianship and major contributions to the Moody Blues’ canon, but also for his continuously positive outlook on life and his staunch belief that love was the only path to human happiness. He continued to praise love’s power throughout his career up to his final recording, the suitably titled EP Love Conquers All, released on Valentine’s Day, 2025. I mourn the loss of a great musician who was also a wonderful human being. 

*****

Color me confused, or color me anal, but before I get to the review, I need to answer one nagging question. Is On a Threshold of a Dream a concept album or not?

In a retrospective look at On a Threshold of a Dream featured in Higher & Higher issue 46-47 published in 2004, Justin Hayward opined, “I think Threshold is the defining album for the Moody Blues. And it’s the one in the ’60s that you would find in people’s homes when you went, they would have that album.” Nine years later, in an interview with Rock Cellar Magazine, Justin cast more than a little doubt on that claim.

RCM: On the Threshold of a Dream. Was that one where you knew the concept at the beginning—or did the concept evolve as you were writing?

JH: What’s the concept? Pete Townshend always said that he loved that, too, as a concept album, and he feels that we were probably before him in doing concept albums. It was a lovely title, but what does it mean?  It’s rather vague, probably something to do with enlightenment and the search for it.  Further than that, I can’t say that there’s a story.

So the Moody Blues’ defining album was built on a “rather vague” concept? That doesn’t make sense. Well, if there is a concept, it must have something to do with the title, so let’s see what Mike Pinder had to say about it in the same issue of Higher and Higher (henceforth represented as H&H):

“About halfway through making the album, when we were kicking some titles around, I remember talking about how here we are, we’d just come through ’67 in kaftans; everybody was out in the street and it was a fun time, and flower power and all that kind of thing. So, we were thinking, ‘Hey, we’re on the brink of a new consciousness, a new way of looking at things.’ And so we were talking about that, and it was like we were ‘on the verge of a human dream, a dream of humanity’, and Dave (David Symonds, BBC Radio DJ) said ‘threshold’, and I came up with ‘of a dream’, and it was like perfect.”

Uh, no, it was not “like perfect.” The title certainly fits the four-piece suite at the end of the album, but the other eight songs only deal with enlightenment peripherally or not at all.

We’ll put the concept album controversy to rest at the end of the review, but I will note that On the Threshold of a Dream is consistent with the two overriding themes that mark the music of the Moody Blues: their firm belief in the power of love and their equally strong convicition that the path to enlightenment was open to everyone, especially the common people in the lower and middle classes. In that sense, On the Threshold of a Dream is essentially a commitment by the Moodies to remain true to their core philosophy.

*****

Side One

“In the Beginning” (Edge): This was the first Moodies’ album recorded during a period uninterrupted by gigs, so the boys had a lot of fun working with producer Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals to create all sorts of sound effects. The album begins with 70 seconds of “the sound of everything but also of nothing”, created by producing high and low frequencies on the Mellotron combined with “pink noise.” Varnals remembered, “We chose the pitch and put lots of reverb on it to make it sound everywhere and nowhere, if you like. It worked and seemed quite atmospheric.” (H&H, ibid) I always thought of the sound as entering a dream state, but I was probably influenced by the album’s title.

A bit of cloudy emptiness follows before “First Man” Justin Hayward offers a modified English translation of Descartes’ “Cogito, ergo, sum” reflecting the ever-present anxiety of modern homo sapiens: I think I am, therefore I am . . . I think.” According to H&H, the sound that follows Justin’s expression of doubt was a who-woulda-thunk-it experiment: “The group placed everyone’s ticking wristwatches and placed them inside a funnel with a microphone. The sound was combined with the sound of the clanking, rotating spindle that made up the internal mechanics of a Mellotron. The overall effect was intended to mimic machinery and the vibes of a mad professor bent on domination.” Edge plays the Establishment mad professor to perfection:

Of course you are my bright little star
I’ve miles and miles of files
Pretty files of your forefather’s fruit
And now to suit our great computer
You’re magnetic ink

For those of you young ‘uns who never wrote a check in your lives, “magnetic ink” is the recognition code printed in a “futurisitic font” on checks to facilitate processing. Back in the early days of computing, when computers filled rooms and disk drives were as big as washing machines, many people worried that computers would eventually wind up controlling human beings and invade their privacy. And guess what? They were right!

First Man isn’t quite ready to surrender to the digital beast (“I’m more than that/I know I am/At least, I think I must be”) and earns kudos from Inner Man (played by Pinder) for standing up for humanity:

There you go man
Keep as cool as you can
Face piles of trials with smiles
It riles them to believe
That you perceive the web they weave
And keep on thinking free

Meanwhile, in the background, the mellotron executes a slow build that reaches a peak, then . . . fuck yeah! The Moodies are rocking!

“Lovely to See You” (Hayward): What a fabulous transition! The combination of Justin’s ripping riffs and Graeme’s slick mix of drums and hi-hats makes me want to dance for joy! The Moodies didn’t rock all that much during their peak period, but when they did, on songs like this one, “Ride My Seesaw” and “The Story in Your Eyes,” I find myself wishing they had done more, because they were so damned good at it.

I’ve always interpreted this ode to friendship as a response to the utter loneliness of First Man as he struggles to confirm his identity. Self-reflection is a wonderful thing, but we also learn more about ourselves through our relationships with others. Fear and doubt are often compounded when we are alone, and the presence of a friend can give us the feeling that “the dark cloud of fear is going away.” Friends can also enrich our lives by telling us about their experiences; hence the eagerness expressed in the key-change-marked lines “Tell us what you’ve seen/In far away forgotten lands/Where empires have turned back to sand.”

I love the enthusiasm of the song, most notably on the reverb-drenched chorus featuring hearty three-part harmonies. And as an extra-added bonus, The Moodies now had the perfect song to open their concerts!

“Dear Diary” (Thomas): Ray bids a fond farewell to Timothy Leary and Dr. Livingstone and moves in a direction closer to another guy named Ray, brilliantly depicting the lives of everyman in his two solo compositions.

The introduction establishes a downcast, jazz-tinged mood with a bluesy riff from John Lodge’s bass, light guitar and stereo flute following a descending chord progression in D minor. The vocal is an internal monologue enhanced by an echo effect that makes it sound like we’re in the character’s head. The lyrics fit the mood, as it’s been a down day for our everyman:

Dear Diary, what a day it’s been
Dear Diary, it’s been just like a dream
Woke up too late, wasn’t where I should have been
For goodness sake
What’s happening to me?
Write lightly, yours truly, dear Diary

It was cold outside my door
So many people by the score
Rushing around so senselessly
They don’t notice there’s people like me
Write lightly, yours truly, dear Diary

The combination of anxiety and resentment usually leads to some kind of outburst, and as the music shifts to a more assertive rhythm in the key of B flat, the lonely introvert makes it clear what’s bugging him: the mindless daily grind, the people who choose to go along with it and (by implication) the system that gives them few other options:

They don’t know what they’re playing
No, they’ve no way of knowing what the game is
Still they carry on
Doing what they can
Outside me, impolitely, dear Diary

That last line is huge in that it reveals both his unwillingness to do anything about it and his own submission to the norm. As long as he believes that all his problems are “outside me,” he’ll be powerless and stuck in his rut forever. In the following verse, he hints that he has a solution for their shared misery, but he wouldn’t think of sharing it, as he knows nobody will listen to a nobody:

It’s over, will tomorrow be the same?
I know that they’re really not to blame
If they weren’t so blind then surely they’d see
There’s a much better way for them to be
Inside me, yours truly, dear Diary

We now move to the next day, which is a repeat of yesterday. Believe it or not, these closing lines were ad-libbed on the spot by Mr. Thomas, a sterling example of the actor immersing himself in the character:

Dear Diary, it was cold today
But the sun came out later
So I went out and strolled about looking at the shops
Didn’t really see anything I liked so I didn’t buy anything
On the way home, I posted a letter
Been quite a nice day
Somebody exploded an H-bomb today
But it wasn’t anybody I knew

I guess the little shit won’t be attending any Ban the Bomb rallies. I think the point Ray was trying to make is that if we talk ourselves into believing that we have no power to change things, nothing will ever change. The guy obviously has some thoughts as to how life could be better for us all, but lacks the courage and will to share them, most likely out of fear of ridicule. So he shares his thoughts in his diary, safe in the knowledge that his diary will never argue with him or suggest that he get off his ass.

If ever anyone needed a jolt of enlightenment, it’s this guy.

“Send Me No Wine” (Lodge): I would have loved this snappy country tune even if they had chosen to eliminate the vocals, the mellotron and the drums, leaving only a duet consisting of John on bass and Justin on acoustic guitar. The twinned arpeggios between the verses are so well-executed that I want to send both the bassist and guitarist kisses through the ether, but I’ll settle for a rousing cheer or two in the privacy of my home. I’ve been tinkering with the idea of doing a post on the most underrated musicians in popular music history, and I’ve already chosen John Lodge as the bassist.

John and Justin also form a vocal duet, and I love Justin’s vocal riffs on the melody as the song nears the finish line. The lyrics could be stronger, but Lodge managed to come up with one of the best lines on the album: “If only everybody found the answer in love.” That may sound naïve and wimpy to the macho MAGA crowd, but I find it quite logical. Making love and making friends are far more pleasant experiences than beating the crap out of someone or filling your foe with bullets.

“To Share Our Love” (Lodge): Rock on, boys! This song has received little attention, but it serves as additional confirmation that the Moodies could rock with the best of them. The strong forward movement powered by Lodge, Edge and Hayward is turbo-charged by those little bits of syncopated polyrhythms between the verses—pow-pow-pow-POW! John’s lead vocal is consistently strong throughout the piece, supported by background and call-and-response vocals from Ray and Justin. Though many music fans dismissed the Moodies as psychedelic softies, Paul Du Noyer got it right: “Widely derided as wimp-rockers, they were at heart a tough little R&B band from Brum.”

You may think that John’s lyrics state the obvious, for after all, we all know it takes two to tango:

Makes me feel good
Now I can see
It takes more than one to give
The life we need

I can’t think why
I never thought of this before

“Well, duh!” you might reply, but think about it: how many people have you met who were all about me-me-me? I’d say that the majority of men I bedded did what they wanted to do to me without giving a second thought to what I wanted; they thought their display of machismo was more than enough to satisfy my needs. Guess again, dipshits! In a world where most take a me-first stance to just about everything in their lives, John’s lyrics serve as a message to the oblivious that love must be a shared experience, or it isn’t love at all.

“So Deep Within You” (Pinder): I can’t tell if the phrase “deep within you” has to do with fucking or spirituality, but I do believe that Mike Pinder should never have written a single love song. He was more suited to the ethereal than the carnal. The Four Tops covered this number in an attempt to stay relevant during changing times, and if Levi Stubbs can’t make a sex song sound sexy, there’s something seriously wrong with the song.

Side Two

“Never Comes the Day” (Hayward): Justin saves the day with this beautiful, emotionally honest song based on personal experience.

The song opens with soft acoustic guitar arpeggios with off-standard voicings on a C-G pattern. The many chord patterns on the internet come close to matching what Justin is playing, but all of them employ standard tuning, and Justin made it quite clear in an interview with Tony Sokol on Den of Geek that he used an open G tuning he learned from Richie Havens. To make things easier, I’ll use standard chording when discussing the music, but I would appreciate it if you would pretend there is an asterisk after each chord.

When asked about the song in the RCM interview, Justin said, “It was quite a difficult time in my life. It was a real painful situation for someone who was as young as me then. I wasn’t quite sure about my own life and what I was doing . . .” Songwriters often work out their difficulties by trying to express their feelings in song, but the challenge is to create a song that is not “about me” but something that the average person can relate to. Justin achieves that by immediately presenting himself as an everyman stuck in the grind of work, work, work:

Work away today, work away tomorrow.
Never comes the day for my love and me.
I feel her gently sighing as the evening slips away.

Justin’s double-tracked stereo voice is subdued and weary, expressing a sense of defeatism. Deep hums accentuate the “Never comes the day” line, reinforcing the sense of helplessness.

It seems our couple is in for another dull evening in front of the telly, but as our everyman sits there with his partner doing whatever, his latent insecurities suddenly come to the fore as the D7/D7sus2 chord signals a key change from C major to G major. Justin’s voice rises to express his underlying anxiety, his emotions enhanced by the entry of the mellotron (played by Justin, not Pinder):

If only you knew what’s inside of me now
You wouldn’t want to know me somehow

A sudden shift to a C minor chord serves as a wake-up call to everyman as he banishes those ugly thoughts from his mind and begins to look on the bright side:

But
You will love me tonight,
We alone will be alright,
In the end.

The music changes from defeatist to triumphant, with Edge, Lodge and handclaps driving the beat, Justin trading acoustic for electric, and Ray Thomas blowing happily away on his harmonica. The shift from morose to hopeful is so powerful that once again, I feel happy tears coming, tears that always manifest themselves in the chorus:

Give just a little bit more
Take a little bit less
From each other tonight
Admit what you’re feeling
And see what’s in front of you,
It’s never out of your sight.
You know it’s true,
We all know that it’s true.

Though it may seem boring to some that except for one word (“Work away today/Think about tomorrow”), the Moodies chose to repeat the verse, bridge and chorus verbatim, I think the repetition is essential to the song’s success because those words deliver a powerful message you wouldn’t want people to forget. You can’t let the grind get you down and shift your focus away from what’s really important: two human beings sharing love. McCartney said it more economically (“And in the end/the love you take is equal to the love you make”), but that line came out of nowhere, while Justin’s wording is enhanced by the previously depicted ennui: “I hear her gently sighing as the evening slips away.”

This was the only song from the album to be released as a single, and it flopped everywhere because some genius stuck in the 1950s decided to perform surgery on the song, cutting out the second verse and extending the chorus to make it “single-sized.” Hey, stupid! Ever hear of “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Hey Jude?” The jerk should have been arrested for felony assault and battery.

“Lazy Day” (Thomas): Ray returns with another solid composition devoted to the mundane, in this case, the tradition of the post-church Sunday dinner to cap the day of rest. In England, the ritual dates back to at least the 17th Century, and is often depicted as a pleasant way to spend time with family and friends while enjoying a special meal. Ray gives us a hint that all is not what it seems to be by opening the composition with three-part wordless harmonies in a minor key, conveying a certain sadness to it all. At first, Ray chooses to play along with the standard interpretation in the verses by moving to a major key, but he also slips in a line that unmasks the cause of the sadness: endless predictability.

Lazy day, Sunday afternoon
Like to get your feet up, watch TV
Sunday roast is something good to eat
Must be lamb today ’cause beef was last week

In the second verse, Ray employs his mates to act as the Greek chorus reflecting everyman’s inner thoughts, exposing the fly in the ointment of this apparently pleasant scene:

So full up, bursting at the seams
Soon you’ll start to nod off, happy dreams
Wake up, for tea and buttered scones (It’s such a crying shame)
Such a lot of work for you, Sunday moms (Week after week, the same)

Now that the truth has been revealed, the music to the bridge consists entirely of minor chords as the chorus reveals the everyman’s dread of having to re-enter the rat race on the morrow:

Today’s heaven-sent and you’re feeling content
‘Cause you worked all week long
Still, it’s quite sad
Tomorrow’s so bad
I don’t feel too strong

After a passage where the wordless vocals surround a pleasant restatement of the melody on Ray’s harmonica, we arrive at the closing verse, a repeat of verse one enhanced by the realization that the “good life” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be:

Sunday roast is something good to eat (That’s how your life goes by)
Now it’s almost over till next week (Until the day you die)

When the song ends, I think of what Justin said in the role of First Man: “I’m more than that/I know I am/At least, I think I must be.” I think that is true for nearly everyone on the planet; we know we are capable of more, but circumstances, systems, and traditions often deny us the right to reach our potential. Great song, but I wish that whoever was responsible for the mix had done a better job of separating Ray’s voice from the chorus, as sometimes the chorus drowns him out.

“Are You Sitting Comfortably” (Introduction)  (Hayward, Thomas): Justin could count composer/lyricist Lionel Bart of Oliver fame as one of his friends, and it was Bart who suggested the song’s title:

There was a children’s radio program. I think it was called Children’s Hour. It opened with the words, “Are you sitting comfortably? and I’ll begin.”  It was a phrase that was in every child’s vocabulary in the UK.  Lionel said, “I always thought about using that as a title. Why don’t you use it as a title?” I said, “OK, that’s a good idea.”  The song’s about storytelling, but it was elevated or changed to a bit of a psychedelic story. (RCM Interview, ibid).

If not for the “psychedelic story” aspect, “Are You Sitting Comfortably” would have been a good fit for To Our Children’s Children’s Children. It’s not like he and Ray were trying to hide anything, as the psychedelic twist appears in the opening verse:

Take another sip my love and see what you will see,
A fleet of golden galleons, on a crystal sea.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Let Merlin cast his spell.

We can assume that the goblet was spiked with LSD, because I drink wine on a regular basis and I have never experienced hallucinations of any sort, even when I’ve downed an entire bottle by myself! I also didn’t know that Merlin was a drug dealer, but then again, I haven’t paid much attention to medieval British legends except as presented by Monty Python.

As a stand-alone song, this is one of the most beautiful pieces in the Moody Blues discography. The melody is exquisite, Justin is in fine voice and Ray works wonders on the flute, nearly crossing the line into piccolo territory when he hits those clear high notes. Alas, as the introduction to the “On the Threshold of a Dream Suite,” the only words that fit are the title (an invitation to sit down and enjoy the show ahead) and “Let Merlin cast his spell” (conveying the promise of magic in the suite).  The Graeme Edge poem that opens the suite makes no mention of Camelot or anything close to Camelot.

“On a Threshold of a Dream Suite”

The suite is something of a patch job, combining Edge’s poem, a stab at the merger of rock and classical in “The Voyage,” and “Have You Heard,” a song Mike Pinder had written in 1966. I read that the suite was a big thrill for fans when played in concert, but my classically trained mother, a fervent Moody Blues fan, saw them perform the suite twice and wasn’t particularly impressed.

Ironically, the suite provides the best evidence that On a Threshold of a Dream is not a concept album. The closing piece to a concept album should somehow summarize all that has gone on before, wrapping things up in a nice, tidy package that pulls it all together. In this case, connecting the suite to the preceding songs requires a very good memory and a whole lot of imagination, and if you can’t connect the dots, you sure as hell do not have a concept album.

“The Dream” (Edge): Here is the poem in its entirety, as narrated by Mr. Pinder:

When the white eagle of the North is flying overhead
And the browns, reds and golds of autumn lie in the gutter dead
Remember then the summer birds with wings of fire flame
Come to witness spring’s new hope, born of leaves decaying
And as new life will come from death
Love will come at leisure
Love of love, love of life and giving without measure
Gives in return a wondrous yearn for promise almost seen
Live hand in hand and together we’ll stand
On the threshold of a dream

The cycle of life is not mentioned in any of the other songs on the album. The only connection I can make involves the lines “Love of love, love of life, giving without measure/Gives in return a wondrous yearn for promise almost seen,” which echoes the themes in “To Share Our Love” and “Never Comes the Day.” Let’s see if Pinder does any better on the next track.

“Have You Heard? Part 1” (Pinder): This part opens with “Now you know that you are real,” and my initial response is “Wait a minute, how do I know that?” I suppose it is a reference to “In the Beginning” and its confirmation that First Man was real, but boy, there’s a lot of music in between these two pieces, and that space dampens the impact.

Now that you know that you are real
Show your friends that you and me
Belong to the same world
Turned on to the same word
Have you heard?

Now you know that you are free
Living all your life at ease
Each day has its always
A look down life’s hallways, doorways
To lead you there

The only references to doors of any kind are irrelevant (“Knock on my door and even the score with your eyes” and “It was cold outside my door.”) It would seem that Pinder was assuming that somehow we got the message from the earlier songs, but there are more songs about unenlightenment than enlightenment. I will admit that I like the song and find Pinder’s voice rather comforting.

“The Voyage” (Pinder): Varnals told H&H that the inspiration for this piece came from Strauss via 2001: A Space Odyssey; i.e, Also Sprach Zarathustra. The inspiration is obvious from the overture, but wouldn’t it have been better if Pinder had combined themes from the various songs on the album and given them the classical treatment? Again: no connection = no concept. The extended piano passage is decent, I suppose.

“Have You Heard? Part 2” (Pinder): After a few sharp thrusts from Lodge’s cello, we find ourselves at Part 2, which is pretty much another exhortation to the audience to work on their consciousness game. The album ends with the drone that opens the album—the strongest example of connection in the entire suite. It’s best to consider the suite as a single long track devoted to encouraging listeners to “think free” and leave it at that.

*****

So Justin was right: there is no story here and only a vague sense of a concept. It’s best to treat On a Threshold of a Dream as an album of songs that validate the Moodies’ über-themes and forget about any notions of a concept album.

Justin likely based his assertion that On the Threshold of a Dream was the Moody Blues’ “defining album” because it was the first of their albums to top the UK charts. I believe that artistic success is the best criterion to determine an artist’s defining album, but while other albums in their discography come closer to meeting that standard, I find it impossible to identify any of their albums as the “defining album” because their offerings are so diverse. However, On the Threshold of a Dream is hardly a throwaway effort, as it contains several wonderful songs that will live forever in our hearts and minds.

*****

I went back and read my 2014 review of To Our Children’s Children’s Children and decided it needed a complete overhaul, so I removed it from the site and will publish a revised version next week. That space had been reserved for Leonard Cohen, but with all that’s going on in the EU, I haven’t had time to finish reading Cohen’s biography or complete the necessary research.

So it’s back-to-back Moodies unless the sore loser decides to take it out on the Norwegians or Putin doesn’t get laid.