It has always been my belief that 1969 was the single greatest year of music. I talked about this back in 2013 while reviewing progressive rock band King Crimson: https://colinkellymusicinreview.blogspot.com/2013/08/king-crimson-21st-century-schizoid-man.html
For that review I looked up basically every rock album that came out year and listened to them all. It was a lot of work, but highly rewarding. I gained greater knowledge and appreciation of those rock bands that I knew but only so well. The band my respect for, that grew the most, during that experiment was the Moody Blues.
The Moody Blues are probably best known for their song “Nights in White Satin” from their second studio album, the 1967 “Days of Future Passed.” A fantastic song with a highly personal tome of emotions, whatever experiences songwriter Justin Hayward channeled to write this song, it resonated with a lot people in their own personal ways and managed to climb the charts and remain popular from its inception to now. “Nights in White Satin” is the obvious launching point for any conversation about the Moody Blues, so I could not avoid it now. This song started the Moody Blues experimenting with orchestra sounds with the mellotron.
I would be lying if I acted like I knew much of anything about what a mellotron is, but thanks to the Moody Blues, I know a mellotron can do. Before the advancement of the synthesizer keyboard the creation of artificial symphony was created by other means, and one of those methods was the mellotron. With the power of this instrument I do not fully understand, the Moody Blues embarked into progressive rock. The albums that followed would become Moody Blues most psychedelic. A lot of drugs were consumed and luckily everyone seemed to come out of it with little to no damage. The only side effect, of their drug use, great music.
The Moody Blue’s forth album, the 1969 “On the Threshold of a Dream” has become my favorite. It is such a trip. The concept album flows from track to track seamlessly, almost as if it were recorded in a single shot. Performed as if it was meant to be one long epic song. The deepest this experience swallows the listener is at the end of the album, the trio of songs that wrap things up are really one song, in three parts, like the acts of play; “Have You Heard, Part 1,” “The Voyage” and “Have You Heard, Part II.”
As I write this, I am listening to the ending of this album, smoking some mix of blueberry kush and meridian, I just let the music take me away on a voyage. Cosmic and strange, alien but comforting. Good times are being had.
The three songs do work as a perfect set. “Have You Heard, Part 1” serves deliberately as an intro, calm and slow introducing the theme of discovery.
“Now you know that you are real.”
This is a helpful opening line, you know, just in case you forgot. Obvious this is a single line, but I believe it works wonderfully as the first step on this song trilogy. So lost in the progressive rock that if you had made it to this eleventh track, a soft reminder of reality is nice.
“The Voyage” is the rising action and climax of this play. The second “The Voyage” begins the sound hardens, and it rises to the piano that dances away with itself, and this is instrumental solo that serves of opening and exiting of the climax. The exact middle of these three songs is the soaring drums and strumming guitar battling each other. The rapid piano takes over once more, until he reaches the strong strings of a cello, which brings up back to continuity.
“Now you know how nice it feels.”
This is the first line in “Have You Heard part 2,” and much like the opening line in part 1, this works a calming reset. The voyage and its excitement are over, time to relax once more; and relax we should. It is real mellow experience sitting back and listening to “On the Threshold of a Dream.” Everyone knows The Moody Blues, and every knows “Nights in White Satin,” but have you heard of “On the Threshold of a Dream?”
Mike Pinder is a genius.
- King of Braves
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