The Moody Blues:
Days of Future Passed

 

 

 

 

Written by Alan McCornack

For “History of Rock and Roll”

Grossmont College, Music 115, Section 8111

Word Count: 2587

Due May 1, 2009

Introduction: Before “Days of Future Passed”

 

The Moody Blues first began as an R&B band during the British Invasion days (May of 1964) in Birmingham, England. Apparently, the name “Moody Blues” is a veiled reference to Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” Founding members Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder decided to “go pro,” and recruited the best Birmingham musicians to form their new group, many of whom they had played with in local gigs. With Denny Laine singing lead vocals, they played local clubs and got enough notice from their soon-to-be manager Tony Secunda to land a Decca recording contract within six months of the formation of the group (1). The core members included Ray Thomas (vocals and flute), Clint Warwick on bass and vocals, and Graeme Edge on drums. They had their first chart-climbing song with “Go Now,” recorded in late 1964. This cover of a Bessie Banks R&B number went to # 1 in England. Their 1965 album “The Magnificent Moodies” included a cover of a James Brown song, perhaps trying to repeat that same success (2).

Like many bands of the Fifties and Sixties, they performed many “cover” tunes, playing in local pubs and clubs, and all were experienced musicians. In this regard, they were unremarkable in their beginning year or two, trying to make something “hit.” The band had quite a few months go by with great anticipation, grinding road trips, and no more hits after “Go Now.” Two members quit after their nightly pay plummeted. After nine months, they were labeled “one-hit wonders.” The departure of both Denny Laine and Clint Warwick in 1966 resulted in the need for new members to take their place. By early 1965, Mike Pinder had purchased a Mellotron (a tape-based machine that could reproduce almost any conceivable sound, from horns, organ or a choir all the way to a full orchestra). “Love and Beauty” was the first Moody Blues song recorded with the Mellotron (3).

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Justin Hayward and bassist John Lodge weren’t merely replacements for departing members. Hayward’s crooning lead voice and growling guitar licks with John Lodges’ bass work were the perfect complement to the keyboard work of Mike Pinder. The sounds Hayward could wrest from his guitar provided the rock core of their material. All Moodies were capable singers, without exception. Pinder worked for a time for Streetly Electronics, the manufacturer of the Mellotron. His ability to fix the machine on the spot would save the day many times. The combination of wicked guitar licks and uplifting vocals, plus lush, orchestra-like accompaniment from the Mellotron, would soon become their signature sound (4).

Listening to May 1967’s recording of “Fly Me High,” though lacking a Mellotron, was an indication of the “mind-expanding” direction of the new Moodies. This was recorded about the time they stopped performing anything besides their own material. They also owed money to Decca, after receiving cash advances.

The idea for the “Days of Future Passed” album began with Decca record executives. They were looking for something to show off their new “Deramic Stereo” sound (presumably with a wider dynamic range). Originally, the idea was to remake Dvorak’s 9^th Symphony. The band members quickly seized upon the idea (as a way to pay off their debt owed for studio time and cash advances), and in fact signed a contract to do just that, but couldn’t follow through. They realized, after being confronted by a disgruntled listener in a club, that they would never be successful as artists if they merely performed other artists work. With a backlog of fresh material they felt was ready to go, and with the help of producer Tony Clarke, and tacit consent of Engineer Derek Varnals, they proceeded to hijack the studio and bar the door from managerial interference. They began with two songs (one about morning, the other about night), and turned them into a song cycle, expanding the original material with new sections for each part of a working mans’ entire day (4).

Work with the London Festival Orchestra (actually 48 studio musicians plus talented conductor/arranger Peter Knight) in a frenzied one-week period had them recording the rock and orchestra parts separately, with musical scores being passed back and forth. United only during mixing, even the band members had little idea what the result would be until the Release Panel of Decca executives were assembled, reel to reel master tape copies were cued, and the speakers, on a stage, played the work from beginning to end. Afterwards, the band, their wives and girlfriends, and record executives sat in stunned silence. Decca executives, hard-pressed to try to fit the music into a category, reluctantly released it after a short delay (2, 4).

I am only able to pin down the date of their weeklong recording session to the two months that include September and October of 1967. The 11^th of November, 1967 is the official release date for the album.

Discography (5)

 

Date	ALBUMS / Singles
1964 August	Lose Your Money
1964 November	Go Now!
1965 February	I Don't Want To Go On Without You
1965 May	From The Bottom Of My Heart
1965 July	THE MAGNIFICENT MOODIES
1965 July	GO NOW
1965 October	Everyday
1966 March	Stop!
1966 October	Boulevard de la Madeleine
1967 January	Life's Not Life
1967 May	Fly Me High
1967 August	Love And Beauty
1967 November	Nights In White Satin
1967 November	DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED
1968 July	Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)
1968 July	Voices In The Sky
1968 July	IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD
1968 October	Ride My See-Saw
1969 April	Never Comes The Day
1969 April	ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM
1969 October	Watching And Waiting
1969 November	TO OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN'S CHILDREN
1970 April	Question
1970 August	A QUESTION OF BALANCE
1971 July	EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR
1971 August	The Story In Your Eyes
1971	IN THE BEGINNING
1972 April	Isn't Life Strange
1972 November	SEVENTH SOJOURN
1972 December	I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band)
1974 November	THIS IS THE MOODY BLUES
1976	A DREAM
1977 April	CAUGHT LIVE + 5
1978 June	OCTAVE
1978 July	Steppin' In A Slide Zone
1978 October	Driftwood
1979 October	OUT OF THIS WORLD
1979	THE MOODY BLUES STORY
1981 May	LONG DISTANCE VOYAGER
1981 May	Gemini Dream
1981 July	The Voice
1981 November	Talking Out Of Turn
1983 August	Blue World
1983 August	Sitting At The Wheel
1983 August 23	THE PRESENT
1984 February	Under My Feet
1984 November	The Voice
1984 November 22	VOICES IN THE SKY
1985 September	THE MOODY BLUES COLLECTION
1986 March	Your Wildest Dreams
1986 May	THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE
1986 August	The Other Side of Life
1987 October 26	PRELUDE
1987	SUPERSTAR CONCERT SERIES (March 2 1987)
1988 May	I Know You're Out There Somewhere
1988 June 6	SUR LA MER
1988 December	No More Lies
1988	Here Comes The Weekend
1989 November 21	THE STORY OF THE MOODY BLUES... LEGEND OF A BAND
1991 June	Say It With Love
1991 June 25	KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
1993 March 9	A NIGHT AT RED ROCKS WITH THE COLORADO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
1994 September?	TIME TRAVELLER
1997 January 28	THE VERY BEST OF THE MOODY BLUES
1998 October 20	ANTHOLOGY
1999 August 17	STRANGE TIMES
2000 March 7	THE BEST OF THE MOODY BLUES - THE MILLENIUM COLLECTION
2000 August 8	LIVE AT ROYAL ALBERT HALL 2000
2000 October 26	THE SINGLES+
2001 April 24	JOURNEY INTO AMAZING CAVES
2001 August 13	THE COLLECTION
2002 August 7	JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
2003 January 14	SAY IT WITH LOVE
2003 November 24	DECEMBER
2004 May 13	HISTORY
2005 March 1	GOLD
2007 February 27	COLLECTED
2007 April 17	LIVE AT THE BBC 1967-1970

 

The “Days of Future Passed” Album

 

Three things about this album were “firsts.” To begin with, it was recorded in stereo at a time when the mono versus stereo war was far from over. Staunch Republicans of that era probably believed that stereo was invented as a Communist plot to sell twice as many speakers to a gullible public. Almost all recordings were produced in Mono at least (for AM radio stations), and Stereo really hadn’t taken the lead yet in record sales, especially in England. American FM stations made the switch to stereo very quickly, and this helped popularize stereo records in the States. The decision to spotlight the added depth that stereo can give a recording, with the sound zooming (panning) from left to right and back again, was not merely novel, it was sort-of mind bending, with or without herbal or chemical enhancements.

The second “first” is that it is the first rock “concept” album, and basically chronicles a day in the life of an average guy (and ends the same way it began). Lastly, they were the first rock artists to fuse rock and classical music together. The combination of stereo, great work on the mixing boards, orchestration, and stark (Edge) poetry readings by Pinder, gives the production a depth and force that makes listening to the whole album a spiritual journey of the mind. Each song on the album blends seamlessly with the next, and each part of the day has its’ own rhythm. The drumming is inspired, done with finesse. Transitions from one distinct section to another are usually smoothed by orchestral strains.

The album begins with a long, slow fade-in of a gong. The first song is titled “The Day Begins.” After about thirty seconds of gradually getting louder, first strings, and then woodwinds play (with a triangle brightly jangling), followed by the horns introducing the first musical idea. Taken up by the strings, they lightheartedly expand the theme with help from woodwinds and horns, briefly touching on melodic themes from later songs (Tuesday Afternoon and Nights in White Satin). Stark poetry, written by Graeme Edge and read by Mike Pinder ushers in the idea of the sunrise being imminent. The first theme forms the backbone of “Dawn Is A Feeling.” The tone is light, and a piano accompanies the singer. The lyrics try to soothe the listener, salute the glory of the rising sun with a happy, gradually increasing tempo.

“LUNCH BREAK: Peak Hour” is track number four. Horns and strings repeat the “Dawn is a Feeling” melody, with orchestral strains and odd beeps that somehow evoke images of hurrying pedestrians amid the traffic and construction noises found in a busy city. The “Peak Hour” referred to is what we would call “Rush Hour” in the United States. All the hustle and bustle of activity of both lunch and commute are joined together, and an allusion to things never ever being completed is replaced by a call for introspection. I believe the line “I’ve found out, I’ve got time,” is gently suggesting we slow down a little and appreciate the moment for what it is.

The fifth track, “Tuesday Afternoon,” continues the section of the album with the busy pace of the mid-day. There is a wistful longing, and the lyrics speak of “the trees (are) drawing me near.” The tempo is set more by the bass player than the drummer, and the bass register plays a central role the song. The last three minutes, stripped from the radio version, the mood changes from alternating between energetic and mystical to sullen and brooding. “Toiling has bought too many tears,” he laments as the afternoon wears on. The lowering sun, and growing shadows, change the tone of this vaguely-worded song about love, leaving a feeling of work-weariness and a downturn in mood, and ends with a repeated chorus of “Evening, the time to get away….” I can imagine for the typical Englishman, this means a few drinks with friends in a pub before going home, but artfully remains unstated.

But the real gem of the album is the last track, “Nights in White Satin.” My opinion is that it is the finest love song ever written. Beginning with a flute introduction, it has a lamenting, fatalistic undercurrent in the lyrics, and even features the flute as a solo instrument. The orchestra and Mellotron are so well intermixed, it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins. The song is a tour de force of musical talent, lyrical angst and improved recording technology. It ends with a gong being struck, and a long, slow fade. I can picture it segueing right back into that first song, and starting all over again.

Though unsure at first after a delayed release, everyone at Decca was reassured when first “Nights in White Satin,” and then soon after “Tuesday Afternoon” rocketed to Gold status in the pop charts of 1967. That album stayed on the charts for two whole years! They were the first of a notable number of groups to fuse Rock with Classical orchestration (Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Electric Light Orchestra, a.k.a. Jeff Lynne, certain Who and Pink Floyd productions, etc.).

With the Beatles churning out Psychedelic music (they used a Mellotron in “Strawberry Fields,”) the Moodies were suddenly in the right place in the right time to help satisfy what listeners wanted to hear. While Pink Floyd was still muddling around with early Psychedelia and primitive synthesizers, the Moody Blues were cranking out “symphonic rock” that was moving, not just in terms of beat, but also echoed the philosophy of ecological consciousness felt by the first Earth Day participants (April 22, 1970). This sentiment was expounded in the Moody Blues album “To Our Children’s Children,” released in 1969. Supposedly, this was a celebration of the U. S. landing on the Moon, but to anyone with ears, brought into question exactly what legacy we would leave to our descendents. Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring,” written in 1962, began to weigh heavily on the public consciousness about then. Ten years later, DDT would be banned in the U.S. of A. forever.

 

Conclusion

 

For me personally, being a “tweenager” at the time of the release of “Days of Future Passed,” it was both the beginning of my environmental consciousness and a musical awakening. I started buying albums, whenever I could afford them. When I couldn’t buy the songs I wanted, I’d make tapes from local FM stations, pouncing on the “Record” button within seconds when I heard a song I wanted. I scrounged up money for albums by collecting pop bottles. I also soon began collecting all glass bottles, hauling them to the recycling center, even though I got no money for them. I started “going green” before it was fashionable, in part due to the philosophy and spirit in the music of the Moodies. Ever since, I have been enamored of “music with a message.” Their music changed my world: Let’s save the earth, one bit at a time.

I would recommend this landmark musical work to anyone and everyone. Though some parts might vaguely remind you of “elevator music,” it is best appreciated by listening to the entire work from beginning to end. I am especially fond of the messages within the lyrics, and feel that the Moody Blues had a positive impact on the world during a time of great change and turmoil.

 

References:

 

(1): http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:aifrxqe5ldte~T1

(2): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moody_Blues

(2): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pinder

(3): http://www.classicbands.com/moody.html

(4): Compilation, included in the booklet with the 5-disc set “Time Traveller,” 1994 Polydor Records.

(5): http://www.connollyco.com/discography/moody_blues/index.html

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