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MOODY BLUES SONGBOOKS

The Greatest Moods Of The
MOODY BLUES





Greatest Moods Songbook 

  LIST OF SONGS

  1. Another Morning
  2. Peak Hour
  3. Tuesday Afternoon
  4. Evening: Time To Get Away
  5. Twilight Time
  6. Nights In White Satin
  7. Late Lament
  8. Ride My See-Saw
  9. House of Four Doors Pt 1
 10. Voices In The Sky
 11. Visions Of Paradise
 12. The Actor
 13. Lovely To See You
 14. Are You Sitting Comfortably
 15. Never Comes The Day
 16. Gypsy
 17. I Never Thought..A Hundred
 18. I Never Thought..A Million
 19. Question
 20. It's Up To You
 21. Dawning Is The Day
 22. The Story In Your Eyes
 23. You Can Never Go Home


  ALBUM SOURCE

  1. Days of Future Passed
  2. Days of Future Passed
  3. Days of Future Passed
  4. Days of Future Passed
  5. Days of Future Passed
  6. Days of Future Passed
  7. Days of Future Passed
  8. In Search Of The Lost Chord
  9. In Search Of The Lost Chord
 10. In Search Of The Lost Chord
 11. In Search Of The Lost Chord
 12. In Search Of The Lost Chord
 13. On The Threshold Of A Dream
 14. On The Threshold Of A Dream
 15. On The Threshold Of A Dream
 16. To Our Children's Children's Children
 17. To Our Children's Children's Children
 18. To Our Children's Children's Children
 19. A Question of Balance
 20. A Question of Balance
 21. A Question of Balance
 22. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
 23. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Many of the songbooks contain information found nowhere else. In this songbook from 1974, each chapter begins a new album and contains several short quotes, some from Graeme Edge, some from Justin Hayward.

by Andy McKaie
Like a strong but gentle wind that eventually bends even the staunchest branches, The Moody Blues' majestic, elegant music has come to be one of the most popular and influential sounds in the world today; their lyrics and entrancing melodies are revered by millions and their experiments with the melodic uses of advanced electronic equipment have inspired others to try their hand in the area.

The Moodies - Graeme Edge, Justin Hayward, John Lodge, Mike Pinder and Ray Thomas - had been through all the pop scenes of the early sixties and, in the summer of 1967, a new musical awareness started to take root amongst the quintet. They began to write their own songs and to look for new unattended musical horizons.

DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED
During the summer of 1967," Graeme reported, "we spent days on end writing and routining new material, incorporating the Mellotron. We had already written 'Tuesday Afternoon', 'Legend of a Mind', 'Peak Hour' and 'Nights in White Satin', and we were hoping to record the first ever pop opera. We had worked out a stage show based entirely on DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, and at the same time, (British) Decca was getting the public interested in stereo, which was then in its infancy. They had already proved that the Classics were enhanced with stereo and wanted to show that rock music could benefit from it as well."

Recorded in ten days, DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED did just that, as the Moodies, working hand in hand with Peter Knight who conducted the London Festival Orchestra on the album, extended the range of pop music to the point where it became one with classical music and poetry. It was a bold experiment that met with a goodly modicum of acceptance and success at the time, becoming a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD
"The next thing to do was to prove that we could do it all again," said Graeme. With the songs on DAYS, we knew they would appeal to the public because we had played them live, but the songs we had for IN SEARCH OF THE LOST CHORD hadn't been tried out in front of an audience, so we had our reservations about them."

The major step that was taken with LOST CHORD was the group's decision to play everything on the record themselves, after having recorded DAYS with Knight and orchestra. Of course, it worked especially well as the group deviated somewhat from the classically restrained beauty of DAYS to soar freely to the heights of "Ride My See-Saw," among others, on LOST CHORD. The record buying public loved it and the album took the Moody Blues to an even larger audience.

ON THE THRESHOLD OF A DREAM
To maintain total control over the channeling of their creativity, The Moody Blues established Threshold Records, distributed in the US by London.

TO OUR CHILDREN's CHILDREN'S CHILDREN
Threshold Records' first release was the Moody Blues' own TO OUR CHILDREN's CHILDREN'S CHILDREN in the same year man first set foot on the Moon.

"We really wanted to do an album about space," Graeme said. "We spent a lot of our time - and still do - gazing up at the sky through telescopes, and we soon realized that all of us on Earth were insignificant compared to the vastness of the Universe. We wanted to express that with CHILDREN'S CHILDREN. It was really (Producer) Tony Clarke's baby, but it was a subject that we all felt strongly about."

After making CHILDREN'S CHILDREN, the Moodies made another decision that many others were later to copy. They found that they were writing songs which were only suitable for inclusion on albums and were virtually impossible to play on stage. From then on they were only to record songs which were capable of playing on stage without any added instrumentation.

A QUESTION OF BALANCE
The first album to be recorded in this fashion was A QUESTION OF BALANCE, off which was taken the 1970 summer-long chart-topping single, "Question".

"The QUESTION OF BALANCE album was the first we had recorded which didn't have a theme running through it, Graeme explained. "it might not sound the right way to do things, but we went into the studio without any songs written and made it all up as we went along. In five weeks, we had completed the album."

Once again the album was a milestone for the band. "QUESTION really brought us together," guitarist Justin Hayward commented. "Instead of being five individuals contributing to an end product, we became more of a unit, and musically the band became much stronger ... With each album we faced a new challenge, and QUESTION was no exception. Because we were not writing to a concept; it was more difficult compiling the lp. We had nothing to work from at all, but fortunately everything fell into place."

EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR
During 1970, the Moody Blues played three American tours, covering the States with short bursts of activity throughout the year, and one factor was continually being discovered on the tours; the fans wanted to hear the old songs as well as the new. We found that with our new material, we were playing for nearly two hours on every gig. With the release of EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR, this problem, which most groups would love to have, was nearly doubled as the album contained another brilliant set of futuristic oriented songs that further established the high quality and consistency of the group. Also for Graeme, EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR was the opening of a very interesting chapter which is still not closed - his experimentation with electric drum kits.

"I'd been working on the idea for some time but found it difficult to get the sound and the quality that I wanted. After a lot of work on the project, I found that I could use the kit on the album as part of the track 'Procession'."

END NOTES
So the Moodies moved ever onward, but it was a 5-year old single, "Nights in White Satin", that helped write the next chapter of their history. Somewhere on the West Coast of America, a DJ was closing each day's broadcast with the Moodies' old single, and radio station programmers up and down the West Coast began picking up on "Nights". London's field promotional staff quickly spread the action across the country. Meanwhile, the group had just completed a U.S. tour which had reportedly outsold Elvis Presley at the box office. The combination of the tour and the renewed interest in "Nights in White Satin" sparked a chain reaction in late summer of 1972 that sent both the single and its accompanying 5-year old album, DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, into their respective Number one spots on the charts.

1973 was the year of the big awards as the band picked up trophies from the National Association of Record Merchandisers, The American Society of Composers and Performers, two Gold discs (for "Nights" and SOJOURN) and an Ivor Novello Composer's Award for "A Simple Game".

In 1973, The Moody Blues made a world tour through Scandinavia, Europe, Great Britain, America and Japan, playing to over a million people.

1974? Well, the one thing you can be sure of is, the Moody Blues will be as musical and entertaining as ever. "We are musicians and entertainers," said Justin. "We make and present music and hope to please as many people as possible. We realize that our music may not be everybody's cup of tea, but that's what we believe in and it's what we like doing. At the same time, we realize the importance of the public, and never do anything with our music that is just to please ourselves."


All the pages in this songbook are blue.

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Last updated January 1, 2008
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