Cream of The Crate: Album Review # 148 - Moody Blues: In Search Of The Lost Chord

This review was originally posted on the first Toorak Times web site where publications ceased on that site in March 2017. The old site will be permanently closed in 2020 and these reviews are being re-published in order to preserve them on the current Toorak Times/Tagg site.

“At its core In Search of the Lost Chord is still a rock album, accented by the same mix of British pop, psychedelia, and spoken-word poetry“ – (Classic Rock Review) . . . “In Search Of The Lost Chord, the second album from the Moody Blues, is heavier in the psychedelics department, but equally stirring and imaginative in its assault. – (Vintage rock.com)

This is album retro-review number 148 in the series of retro-reviews of both vinyl and Cd albums in my collection.

The series is called “Cream of The Crate” and each review represents an album that I believe is of significant musical value, either because of it’s rarity, because it represents the best of a style or styles of music or because there is something unique about the group or the music.

The first fifty reviews were vinyl only, and the second fifty reviews were CD’s only. Links to these reviews can be found at the bottom of this page. From review 101 onward I have mixed vinyl and CD albums and, try and present an Australian album every fifth review!

The 1960’s were heady years and the music that both supported the “headiness” and indeed encouraged it became more and more developed.

This British group made their name in this genre.

The group was the British “head” group – The Moody Blues and the album is In Search Of The Lost Chord.

Originally released on vinyl in 1968, this CD version was the 1997 re-release on the Deram label – code 42284 4768-2.

It is a 12 track release. Deram Records was a subsidiary record label of Decca Records established in the United Kingdom in 1966 and was an active release label until 1979 when it became the Decca (England) main re-release label.

The tracks were re-mastered from the original tapes to make use of the then new CD format.

The story of the Moody Blues is the story of a young group from Birmingham who like many other British groups of the early 1960’s, had a desire to become “Top of the Pops”.

The group consisted of founders Ray Thomas and Mike Pinder, who had been trying their hand out in a few groups prior to forming the Moody Blues.

By 1963 with the advent of the music and hysteria surrounding the Beatles, it was a case of over 2350 young groups, the greater majority amateur part-time groups, all vying for very few live gigs.

In order to get ahead of the “pack”, Thomas and Pinder decided to try and go professional, recruiting members from some of the best groups working in Birmingham.

This included Denny Laine (vocals, guitar), Graeme Edge (drums), and Clint Warwick (bass, vocals).

The Moody Blues, as in the main an R&B group, made their debut in Birmingham in May of 1964, and quickly earned the notice and later the services of manager Tony Secunda. A major tour was quickly booked, and the band landed an engagement at the Marquee Club, which resulted in a contract with England’s Decca Records less than six months after their formation.

The group’s first single, “Steal Your Heart Away,” released in September of 1964, didn’t touch the British charts.

However, their second single “Go Now“, released in November of 1964, fulfilled every expectation and more, reaching number one in England.

Meanwhile in America, it peaked at number 10. What the struggling group then discovered was that following up “Go Now” was easier said than done.

Despite their fledgling songwriting efforts and the access they had to American demos, this version of the Moody Blues never came up with another single success.

By the end of the spring of 1965, the frustration was palpable within the band and it resulted in membership changes. As it turned out these changes would forever change the fate of the group.

Warwick, exited in the spring of 1966, and by August of 1966 Laine had left as well.

Warwick was replaced by John Lodge. His introduction to the band was followed in late 1966 by the addition of Justin Hayward.

At first the group stayed afloat financially by engaging in gruelling European “tours”, that is playing in whatever clubs and dives they could book into throughout Europe.

Yet it was becoming clear that the time had passed where groups could make a living and become big by piggy-backing on American R&B and blues music.

With groups like the Stones, the Beatles and others successfully writing their own material, it was write your own material, or perish.

The lineup at this time was certainly the best and most progressive. As the years went on some members left and some passed away, but this is the lineup responsible for the best Moody Blues work.

But fate also intervened for the Moody Blues in terms of the advent of some new technology.

Decca formed the Deram label, which in 1967 decided that it needed a long-playing record to promote its new “Deramic Stereo.”

The Moody Blues were picked for the proposed project which was a rock version of Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

The concept was pretty radical for the time and the label was convinced it could be on a winner – however the Moody Blues had been putting their own ideas down and there was a synergy between the Deram project and a project the Moody Blues had been composing for,

As a result they successfully convinced the staff producer and the engineer to abandon the source material and permit the group to use a series of its own compositions that depicted an archetypal “day,” from morning to night.

Using the tracks laid down by the band, and orchestrated by conductor Peter Knight, the resulting album “Days of Future Passed” became not only a landmark in the band’s history, it opened up a whole new musical form for the times.

The mix of rock and classical sounds was new, and at first puzzled the record company, but really it was inevitable that the album would be released and so it was.

This album, and its singles “Nights in White Satin” and “Tuesday Afternoon,” hooked directly into the musical sides of the “Summer of Love” and its aftermath.

The problem for the band was that they had a massive LP hit with a number of tracks that audiences simply demanded they play – but without the orchestra, they sounded very empty.

By the time this album, In Search of the Lost Chord was being developed, the group abandoned the orchestra in favour of the Mellotron, which quickly became a part of their signature sound along with an ever growing range of instruments.

These included Indian instruments such as the sitar (played by guitarist Justin Hayward), the tambura (played by keyboardist Mike Pinder) and the tabla (played by drummer and percussionist Graeme Edge).

These made audio appearances on several tracks (notably “Departure“, “Visions of Paradise” and “Om“).

Other unconventional instruments were also used were notably the oboe (played by percussionist/flute player Ray Thomas) and the cello (played by bassist John Lodge, who tuned it as a bass guitar).

The mellotron, played by Pinder, produced many of the string and horn embellishments.

It is said that a total of around thirty three instruments were used.

Justin Hayward – Vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar, sitar, harpsichord, piano, mellotron, bass guitar, percussion, tabla
John Lodge – Vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, cello, tambourine, snare drum
Graeme Edge – Drums, piano, timpani, tambourine, tabla
Ray Thomas – Vocals, C flute, alto flute, soprano saxophone
Mike Pinder – Vocals, mellotron, piano, harpsichord, acoustic guitar, cello, autoharp, bass guitar

Tony Clarke – Producer, Liner Notes
Derek Varnals – Engineer
Adrian Martins – Assistant Engineer
Phil Travers – Artwork, Illustrations, Cover Art
Steven Fallone – Remastering, Digital Remastering

Now after the first album and its tremendous live orchestra sound, reviews at the time of the release of In Search Of A Lost Chord were at times quite damming.

Of course we imagine that when Rolling Stone reviews, it does so and speaks authoritatively.

That is not always the case and in fact there is even a publication called the 500 Worst reviews by Rolling Stone.

So when they wrote off both this track and its predecessor: “What are we finally to make of the Moody Blues?

The conceptions of both of their recent albums have been disastrous . . . . their writing is not consistently imaginative, but it is not especially derivative either . . . hopefully next time the Moody Blues will leave their London Festival Orchestra and Yantra at home and get together a straight ahead, no bull-shit album of rock“.

That review speaking of the Rolling Stone review said, “It simply just didn’t ring true!”

Yer, right!!! Just what the world needed in 1968 with groups like the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, and a man called Jimi Hendrix – all playing powerful material.

We “so needed” another group playing “rock”!!!!

So the Moody Blues ignored Rolling Stone and in fact as a result of their determination not to play “rock” but what they could see as a developing “new style”!

Their first album went platinum in the USA and Canada and In Search Of A Lost Chord – the album under review, went platinum in Canada and Gold in the USA and to add to compounding Rolling Stone mistake.

In fact over the years 82 different pressings of this album have been made. Not bad for a group that should have ‘stuck to rock”!

Track Listing
Side One

“Departure” (Graeme Edge) – 0:48 (narrator: Graeme Edge)
“Ride My See-Saw” (John Lodge) – 3:37 (lead singers: John Lodge, Ray Thomas, Justin Hayward, Mike Pinder)
“Dr. Livingstone, I Presume” (Ray Thomas) – 2:58 (lead singer: Ray Thomas)
“House of Four Doors” (Lodge) – 4:11 (lead singer: John Lodge)
“Legend of a Mind” (Thomas) – 6:40 (lead singer: Ray Thomas)
“House of Four Doors” (Part 2) (Lodge) – 1:43 (lead singer: John Lodge)

Side Two

“Voices in the Sky” (Justin Hayward) – 3:32 (lead singer: Justin Hayward)
“The Best Way to Travel” (Mike Pinder) – 3:12 (lead singer: Mike Pinder)
“Visions of Paradise” (Hayward, Thomas) – 4:15 (lead singer: Justin Hayward)
“The Actor” (Hayward) – 4:39 (lead singer: Justin Hayward)
“The Word” (Edge) – 1:36 (narrator: Mike Pinder)
“Om” (Pinder) – 6:27 (lead singers: Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas)

The album was very much part of the shared house(s) that I was part of in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

I guess that it was because the group successfully captured the mood and the “cosmic” needs of the then counter-culture.

It didn’t mean we were not still appreciative of other great styles of music, such as R&B, Blues and what we called ‘rock’ at that time. But it was all part of the search for some meaning in what appeared at the time to be a chaotic and meaningless society.

Actually, come to think of it, there is a good argument that not much has changed.

Did their music inevitably led to some serious delving into the world of mind altering drugs, most widely used being smoking substances and LSD at the time?

Let’s leave that to the sociologists and focus on the music and those that made it.

Whether the music of the day was responding to these changing directions or whether it was at times driving them, really didn’t matter.

Jimi Hendrix provided an ‘electric” journey into alternate realities, Pink Floyd vacillated between crazy electronics and lengthy mind tomes – both of which we readily embraced. I

n fact there were many groups and artists that either jumped on or floated onto that particular stylistic music wagon.

The Moody Blues were probably the very best at what they did – a gentle, word driven, eclectic music journey that made use of the vast array of instruments at their beck and call.

It wasn’t a music style that lasted all that long, in fact from the first album to their last recognised album only lasted some five years.

It can be successfully argued that their “music reign” finished with the Seventh Sojourn, which was the 7th of what might be loosely called their “head albums” – and in fact it really was all over by 1972 despite them producing another 9 albums, right up to 2003.

There was no disguising the thrust of In Search Of A Lost Chord.

It was heavily directed toward the search for an answer to a persons (each listener’s) question on . . . . well some said the imponderable, others said, simply the meaning of “it” all, with psychedelics playing a key role.

It was one of the growing number of “concept” albums that were produced during this period, and was in fact one of the better ones.

It was both a search and discovery of one’s self through the physical world (as epitomised by the track Dr. Livingstone), the spiritual world (Voices In The Sky) and the world of the philosopher – the thinking man (The Four Doors)

But it didn’t end there, oh no! There was the element of love (The Actor), the confusion of an ever changing world (Ride My See Saw), the use of our imagination (The Best Way To Travel), the release from the bonds of previous learning (The Legend Of A Mind) and moving beyond our boundaries of our experiences (Departure).

Of course the whole concept was tied up in such a way that by examining and experiencing all these elements, we would eventually come to the realisation and the discovery of the Lost Chord through the track, Om!

In fact “The Lost Chord” is a song composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1877 and at its heart involves the singer recounts the striking of the mysterious chord.

I think it is very likely this work had an influence on Pinder who wrote Om.

In the lyrics that are associated with Sullivan’s work, in part they say.”
I know not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

In choosing to resolve the mystery of the Lost Chord as Om, Pinder has in fact simply left us with a bigger question – but that’s OK!

You see “Om” really has no meaning, it is deliberately vague.

For starters, it’s all about sacred threes.

Most faiths have trinities in their roots and Hinduism, where “Om” was born, is no different. Even though it’s usually pronounced seamlessly so it rhymes with “home,” “Om” is made up of three syllables: A, U, and M, or, phonetically, “aaah,” “oooh,” and “mmm.”

Experts say these syllables can represent a slew of trios, including: the heavens, earth, and the underworld; the Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (aka creator god, sustainer god, and destroyer god); and the waking, dreaming, and dreamless states — “to represent all of consciousness,”.

And that is at the nub of it all what the Moody Blues were doing with this album, they were providing music as a mechanism to both have the listener start to think about consciousness

For those whose journey had already begun, it provided a platform for further considering its nature and effect upon all things.

Of course, it was also a bloody good piece of music and even if you were delving deep into the mystical meaning of “it all”, it still provided a great album of music.

Is it dated?

Well, yes in some ways it is for it was very much tied up into the times and needs of the day.

However, on the other hand I believe that it does represent an extraordinary piece of music – or pieces of music, and at the time it broke new grounds and largely still stands up to scrutiny today.

So let’s delve into some of the tracks.

But first (and here it comes) – my comment on the booklet, or in this case a four page double sided gloss fold-out.

Now my vinyl copy of this album is long gone but I don’t recall there being an insert.

Once I had all their albums on vinyl but now all I now only have is the 1971 Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, the 1972 Seventh Sojourn and an excellent vinyl compilation album, This Is The Moody Blues, bought out in 1974.

But back to the fold-out!

It forms the cover of the CD, and is a replica of the original cover and inside across four faces are different members talking about the tracks.

There is a double face that really is a piece of glorious nothing, it names the five key members and gives the most basic info or release date, catalogue number and points out that the album reached the number 5 position.

The final face is a series of photos of the group members.

Rating it from 1 (terrible) to 10 (the absolute best), I rate it in terms of information, quality, pictures and general usability – at 6.5.

Now in some ways the album is simply about the group trying to see how far they could go in the studio without the massive orchestral backing of the album Days Of Future Passed.

In the words of Justine Lodge, “We said there would be no boundaries. What we didn’t know how to play, we’d buy a book and work it out . . . we were experimenting.

It was a great time. We had no idea how it would work.”

This freedom to experiment, even to play the instruments in ways they were not meant to be, resulted in some interesting moments in the music.

I have decided to kick off with track 2 – Ride My See Saw.

This is a powerful, uptempo piece and it’s possibly the most pushy/powerful track on the album.

John Lodge said of this track that he was prompted to compose it based upon the freedom he felt he had achieved. He went on to say that while at school he had a set of values to live by taught to him. Now out of school and in the world at large, and the world of music specifically, he felt he had completed his “scholarly learning” and was now learning from life.

Along with the great tempo, it is strong with harmonies in the middle and the result is the energy and the vocal hooks encourage the audience to sing along.

Ride, ride my see-saw,
Take this place
On this trip
Just for me.

Ride, take a free ride,
Take my place
Have my seat
It’s for free.

I worked like a slave for years,
Sweat so hard just to end my fears.
Not to end my life a poor man,
But by now, I know I should have run.

Run, run my last race,
Take my place
Have this number
Of mine.

Run, run like a fire,
Don’t you run in
In the lanes
Run for time.

Left school with a first class pass,
Started work but as second class.
School taught one and one is two.
But right now, that answer just ain’t true.

Ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah

My world is spinning around,
Everything is lost that I found.
People run, come ride with me,
Let’s find another place that’s free.

Ride, ride my see-saw,
Take this place
On this trip
Just for me.

Ride, take a free ride,
Take my place
Have my seat
It’s for free.

Ride, my see-saw.
Ride, ride, ride, my see-saw.
Ride, my see-saw…

This track is one of two singles released using material from this album. It really has some excellent guitar playing it and heavily features the mellotron.

Ride My See Saw

Following Ride My See Saw is track 4, House of Four Doors, which leads nicely into track 5.

Not surprisingly the track is broken into four sub-sets all continue the story of the search. There are some very nice and dramatic moments, and at one time what sounds very much like a spinet!

When we get to the last door, we reach the door that contains the story as told about Timothy Leary.

Track number 5 – Legend Of A Mind.

This is flautist Ray Thomas’ most epic composition, Legend of a Mind: a musical tribute to LSD guru Timothy Leary.

It combines melodic Beatle-esque pop with exotic nuances under a solid psychedelic guise, and also includes a beautiful extended flute solo. The track suggests a story that Timothy Leary will not pass away, but will always be with us, even if it is on the astral plane.

At this time Leary was very much alive and didn’t pass away in fact until almost 20 years later – in May 1996.

Despite the track having all the hallmarks of a track of respect, even solemnity in regard to the astral travelling concept, when it was written it was anything but.

Ray Thomas, like all the members of the Moody Blues, had indulged in various forms of meditation and eastern mysticism and had read about the “happenings” at Haigh Ashbury in San Francisco.

According to Thomas, the guys had not even seen LSD at this time, let alone partaken and the track was written tongue-in-cheek.

Thomas said, “I saw the astral plane as a gayly-painted biplane where you paid a couple of bucks and they took you for a trip around the bay (San Francisco bay).”

He went on to say later he met Leary and when talking about the track, he thought what Thomas had to say “was a hoot!”

The lyrics regarding Timothy Leary’s dead, was a reference to the Tibetan Book Of The Dead that he had been reading at the time.

This book was a “must read” for any discerning hippy at the time. Interestingly the title of the track does not appear once within the song.

A friend pointed out to me a piece written on this track in another publication (John McFerrin reviews). It really sums up how I feel about the track perfectly.

“The song is stunning, with an almost perfect mellotron arrangement to go with Thomas’ mad flute soloing.

Indeed, this song is a good demonstration of Pinder’s total mastery over the mellotron; listen to the “bend” in the keyboard sound during the verses (Timothy Leary’s dead *bend* No no no no he’s outside *bend* looking in *bend* *bend*) and remember that that sound is created by him adjusting how hard he’s pressing down on the keys.

Regardless, this is some of the most wonderfully trippy music the band ever made (don’t forget about the spooky harmonies at the end)“.

It is a beautifully composed piece of music and in many ways demonstrates the quality of the playing of the instruments and in particular the compositional skills of Ray Thomas, although it is very likely each member of the group bought something to the table for this piece of work.

Timothy Leary’s dead.
No, no, no, no, He’s outside looking in.
Timothy Leary’s dead.
No, no, no, no, He’s outside looking in.
He’ll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.

Along the coast you’ll hear them boast
About a light they say that shines so clear.
So raise your glass, we’ll drink a toast
To the little man who sells you thrills along the pier.

He’ll take you up, he’ll bring you down,
He’ll plant your feet back firmly on the ground.
He flies so high, he swoops so low,
He knows exactly which way he’s gonna go.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.

He’ll take you up, he’ll bring you down,
He’ll plant your feet back on the ground.
He’ll fly so high, he’ll swoop so low.
Timothy Leary.

He’ll fly his astral plane.
He’ll take you trips around the bay.
He’ll bring you back the same day.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
Timothy Leary.

Legend Of A Mind

The track then slips into the final track on side 1 on the original vinyl format, into what really is a form of a reprieve of an earlier track.

Track number 6 is House Of Four Doors (Part 2).

It tells of what happens after having walked through that final door – as the Moody Blues sing –

Walking thru that door
Outside we came
Nowhere at all
Perhaps the answers here
Not there anymore

Then in our hearts the light broke thru
A path lost for years is there in view
House of four doors
You’ll be lost now forever
House of four doors
Rest of life’s life forever.
House of four doors
You’ll be lost now forever
House of four doors
Rest of life’s life forever.

House of Four Doors (Part 2)

Once upon a time we would then flip over the album and play the other side, and with an album such as this one, that was actually a great thing to have to do.

Why? because you were forced to take a pause in the music and in some ways at that time at least, it was necessary.

All journeys need some reflection along the way, and this journey was not over – but had we been privy to ‘secrets” that needed reflection? or was it just time to go make a cup of tea?

Now with a CD, it’s straight on through as there is no side 2.

But I can’t help thinking about the original vinyl album and the fact that side 2 (track 7 onward) was every part as good a quality as side 1, maybe even better.

Track 7 is Voices In The Sky.

For this track the group called upon the man who may just have had the best voice in the group, Justin Haywood.

Haywood wrote the piece and provided the lead vocals which are both beautiful in terms of his initial ballad type style of delivery, but then absolutely soar across what are some very rich and beautiful harmonies.

This is an utterly delightful track and reeks of spirituality not because it is filled with puerile semi-pseudo lyrics about ‘god”, but because of the melody, the interpretive playing and the more subtle nature of those lyrics.

Voices In The Sky

The next track is a ripper!

The Best Way To Travel is a Mike Pinder composition.

It also features the use of the mellotron to produce some quite unearthly/spacey sounds. Now remember at this time instruments such as synths were very embryonic.

Now while today the musician/composer has a veritable palette of a million sounds at his or her hands, this was at the time some very clever and well thought out playing on the mellotron was called for and, was delivered!

The track is pretty much an out-of-the-world rocker. It tells us that if we want to travel in our search for meaning, then use of the mind.

To use your imagination is in fact the very best way to travel.

Sure these days it might be tempting to listen and cynically declare it’s nothing but a piece of semi-acid rock! If you want to take that position, it is defensible.

On the other hand it is just as easy to defend the position I am taking, that this was a fantastic piece of music at the time and sure hit a sympathetic note in many.

The Best Way To Travel.

Indeed the remainder of the album has many, many great moments.

Although if you are in fact a cynic, when you get to the penultimate track – The Word, you might just find words hard to articulate – but this short piece – lasting only 49 seconds, is a short discourse that leads us into the final track.

This is where we discover that the meaning is in fact, “Om“.

Mike Pinder brings the album to its final destination. It has mid-eastern roots and places the cello and mellotron at the centre of its sound.

It is a meditative piece of music that brings the album to a fulfilling end.

Steeped in eastern mysticism and underpinned with flute and sitar, it was the climax of a journey that the album set out to take the listener on.

It has some wonderful and subtle panning of sounds that along with the sitar certainly set the scene for an intense inner reflective trip, that may have only lasted 5 minutes and 44 seconds, but what do they say about quality and quantity?

The Word/Om

So there it is, my review of an album that was possibly played back in the late 1960’s and even into the 1970’s as many times as any in my collection.

The Moody Blues were actually loved, or hated even at the time, and it may be that dichotomy is even stronger today.

Personally I am very glad the Moody Blues did not take Rolling Stones review of the day to heart and simply pumped out more (unneeded) rock music!

There was a void, even if we didn’t recognise it at the time, and the Moody Blues filled it magnificently, and they really, had and still have, no peers.

There are a number of Moody Blues albums that could be in any decent music collection, and this should be one of them.

It is quality throughout, and while there might be the odd “cringe” moment – and we will all find our own, it is an album steeped in quality and originality, and, where might be derivative, it does it with class.

The album is readily available with second hand vinyl copies available on from $10.00 to over $100 on Ebay, and the CD is readily available.