If you have any thoughts on the album please let me know
Previous albums discussed are
Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish (August)
Sounds Of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel (September)
Revolver by The Beatles (October)
In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson (November)
Buffalo Springfield Again by Buffalo Springfield (December)
Disraeli Gears by Cream (February)
Not much to be said about this opening track. It’s a poem with a discordant backing read by Graeme Edge. It’s a concept album so I get that this is a reasonable start to the album. You can't take this track in isolation of the rest of the album
There's not much by way of "fun facts" about this album. It was the last one they recorded on four-track tape machines, and the studio got a big upgrade during the sessions, so the last four songs they did were recorded on new 8-track machines, which is why they sound a bit different.
Also, when they started recording, their previous LP (Days of Future Passed) had only been out for about two months, so they were already in the studio as it was taking off commercially. It was selling like hotcakes (which was a big deal back then because in those days, hotcakes were the only food that was available for anyone to eat). The head of their record label, Decca, was super-happy about that and told them they could book as much studio time as they wanted, and do whatever they wanted with the album cover too. They were especially relieved about the album cover, because originally the label had insisted that they put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to the elbow, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. The band thought this was "disgusting" and "sexist" so they replaced that with an image of a giant skull across from a giant fetus, coming together to squish a line of unidentified squatting people in between them.
At least, this was how the story was told to me... I might have gotten some of the details mixed up a bit there. 🤔
There's not much by way of "fun facts" about this album. It was the last one they recorded on four-track tape machines, and the studio got a big upgrade during the sessions, so the last four songs they did were recorded on new 8-track machines, which is why they sound a bit different.
Also, when they started recording, their previous LP (Days of Future Passed) had only been out for about two months, so they were already in the studio as it was taking off commercially. It was selling like hotcakes (which was a big deal back then because in those days, hotcakes were the only food that was available for anyone to eat). The head of their record label, Decca, was super-happy about that and told them they could book as much studio time as they wanted, and do whatever they wanted with the album cover too. They were especially relieved about the album cover, because originally the label had insisted that they put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to the elbow, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. The band thought this was "disgusting" and "sexist" so they replaced that with an image of a giant skull across from a giant fetus, coming together to squish a line of unidentified squatting people in between them.
At least, this was how the story was told to me... I might have gotten some of the details mixed up a bit there. :-k
Thanks for the “fun facts” there MJ. You learn something new every day.
I love the Moody Blues and this is my favorite song on the album and of course it's one of their biggest hits. I always thought that they should have had more fast rock songs like this on their albums, but they never had more than one or two per album. They're usually their best tracks too. Some Moody Blues fans I know don't like this album as much as the others, and I kind of agree that some of the psychedelia of the songs is kind of silly, but even some of those ones are pretty great. Like Legend of a Mind. Ride My See Saw is better than every other song, but there's still other great songs on the album like Voices in the Sky and The Actor. For some reason I always think that Lovely to See You is on this album instead of Ride My See Saw, but it's actually on their next album. I don't know why I mix em up, but probably cuz they're a little similar, and they're both the big rock song of the albums.
I love the Moody Blues and this is my favorite song on the album and of course it's one of their biggest hits. I always thought that they should have had more fast rock songs like this on their albums, but they never had more than one or two per album. They're usually their best tracks too. Some Moody Blues fans I know don't like this album as much as the others, and I kind of agree that some of the psychedelia of the songs is kind of silly, but even some of those ones are pretty great. Like Legend of a Mind. Ride My See Saw is better than every other song, but there's still other great songs on the album like Voices in the Sky and The Actor. For some reason I always think that Lovely to See You is on this album instead of Ride My See Saw, but it's actually on their next album. I don't know why I mix em up, but probably cuz they're a little similar, and they're both the big rock song of the albums.
Thanks for your thoughts Roberto. I’m actually going to write something about each track. This one is probably my favourite on the album but we’ll see. Voices in the sky is another cracker
Just my opinion: This song was always everything I DON'T like about The Moody Blues. I've never liked the sound of their voices together. They just always sounded more like a men's choir than a rock band. A song about a see-saw always seemed kinda hokey to me. Their more uptempo songs seem to me to lack a real feel...they sound like they are just playing faster because they needed a faster song. And I could live the rest of my life without hearing any of their overly serious and drama heavy spoken word pieces Just because it worked once doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. _________________ I'm leaning on the threshold
Of her mystery
And crashing through the walls
Of dying history
A song about a see-saw always seemed kinda hokey to me.
It's an Eastern mysticism thing, actually. Buddhists, and a fair number of Hindu sects, use the see-saw metaphor to illustrate how in the unenlightened life, individuals are forced into constant up-and-down, good-vs.-evil, pleasure-and-pain cycles that prevent them from escaping the "wheel of samsara" and the "karmic cycle" and ultimately ascending into higher planes of consciousness as Bodhisattvas. Steely Dan also did a song about it on Countdown to Ecstasy, where the Bodhisattva takes you by the hand and convinces you to sell your house in town.
So, supposedly, In Search Of The Lost Chord is a concept album consisting of this one song about how the unenlightened life really sucks and should be escaped from, followed by a bunch of songs suggesting various ways to do that — travel, drugs, religion, meditation, acting classes, repeating monosyllabic mantras for long periods of time, crushing squatting people between giant skulls and fetuses, and so on. The usual sort of thing, really.
It's an Eastern mysticism thing, actually. Buddhists, and a fair number of Hindu sects, use the see-saw metaphor to illustrate how in the unenlightened life, individuals are forced into constant up-and-down, good-vs.-evil, pleasure-and-pain cycles that prevent them from escaping the "wheel of samsara" and the "karmic cycle" and ultimately ascending into higher planes of consciousness as Bodhisattvas. Steely Dan also did a song about it on Countdown to Ecstasy, where the Bodhisattva takes you by the hand and convinces you to sell your house in town.
So, supposedly, In Search Of The Lost Chord is a concept album consisting of this one song about how the unenlightened life really sucks and should be escaped from, followed by a bunch of songs suggesting various ways to do that — travel, drugs, religion, meditation, acting classes, repeating monosyllabic mantras for long periods of time, crushing squatting people between giant skulls and fetuses, and so on. The usual sort of thing, really.
That’s interesting MJ. Now you say that the song makes so much more sense in the context of the rest of the album.
Also a Fun fact there about steely Dan that I wasn’t aware of
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MadhattanJack
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