Wasn’t he just on the road?
Is that how this works? You’re alive and fresh, kicking as Simple Minds would say, and then one day you’re just gone? I mean 82 years old. You can’t say that he was ripped-off. But he was vital, and now he’s not here anymore. And another slice of my musical history falls off the cliff.
We all knew “Go Now,” a great moody ballad from before John Lodge, never mind Justin Hayward, was even in the Moody Blues.
But then Denny Laine exited, and the band’s bass player too, and there ensued a new act with the same moniker that was completely different. They recorded “Days of Future Passed” with the so-called London Festival Orchestra, that didn’t really exist, and…
You heard “Tuesday Afternoon” on FM radio. At least I did. I taped it on my Norelco from WDRC in Hartford. I’d gone to Radio Shack to buy a cable to connect it to my stereo and…
That was a thing we did back then, hunt for new FM stations. We got all the ones from New York, but there was one in New Haven and one on Long Island and even the University of Bridgeport had one. Seems quaint today, but it was cutting edge back then.
So when I just read in an obituary that “Tuesday Afternoon” had little impact upon release, that had me scratching my head, because I loved it…once again, not only the mood, but the sweet vocal. Back before music had to be in your face, back before it was just special sauce for a good time, it was something more…truly its own art form. The Beatles exploded the old singles paradigm and a bunch of groups followed them into albumsville. You wanted to make a statement. There didn’t have to be a concept or a story, but the music had to hang together, it had to be representative of who you were, and even though there were some legendary producers who worked on multiple albums, the records all sounded different, especially those of the Moody Blues. As a matter of fact, it was when they started to have hit singles that the magic disappeared. There were songs that hit the airwaves, but the albums didn’t hang together like they had previously.
I started with “Days of Future Passed.” I distinctly remember my parents driving me to my first semester in college and playing it on that same Norelco deck. This was the one and only rock record my father didn’t insist on immediately turning off, he even came to like it.
And after I bought “Days of Future Passed,” I bought “On the Threshold of a Dream,” which had a gatefold cover when that was not assured, when it was only for the biggest and most special of acts. And inside there was a multi-page booklet with lyrics and that first side… “Lovely to See You” to “Dear Diary” to “Send Me No Wine”… That was a murderer’s row of music. You didn’t cherry-pick cuts, you let them play through, and John Lodge wrote “Send Me No Wine.”
Now you’ve got to know, the Moody Blues (referred to in the press as the “Moodies,” but we never called them that) were a relatively faceless band. The act was not on the album cover and no one was the obvious lead singer…it was an ensemble. Meaning, just being a member of the group was enough. I could single out the songs Lodge wrote, the chart success of said, but that would be missing the point. When you talk about album acts, the Moody Blues represented the apotheosis. You were either in or you were out. And for a long time it was a cult. Like I referenced above, when they had a hit with “A Question of Balance” more people knew them, but the albums were a step down from what had come before.
And I didn’t know all that had come before. But when I was a freshman in college we all hung in Dave McCormick’s room on the second floor of Hepburn Hall during Winter Term and… It would be cold and snowy out, but inside…we’d light the zilch and listen to “Layla,” “Idlewild South” and…
“In Search of the Lost Chord” and “To Our Children’s Children’s Children.” They were new to me then, now I know them by heart.
“Timothy…Leary.”
I think “In Search of the Lost Chord” would blow the minds of the younger generation. Because it was sui generis, and it was out there. This was not music made for Top Forty radio, not by a long shot, this was an excursion into a realm that could not be conceived, they concocted a whole world based on mind expansion and you could be sitting at home listening and go on more of a trip than if you actually flew to Africa and looked for Dr. Livingstone.
As for “To Our Children’s Children’s Children”… Before I bought the LP I wasn’t sure how many “Children” were actually in the title.
Anyway, we used to start this album on the second side. With “Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)” and “Eternity Road,” and then the best song on the album, Lodge’s “Candle of Life.”
“Something you can’t hide
Says you’re lonely”
Absolutely!
The older you get, the happier you are. But when you’re a kid, you’re part of a family obeying rules you may not agree with and you’re looking for acceptance and understanding and I found it in records.
Let’s be clear, these acts were rich. And they were Gods. But they were very different from today’s stars. First, there was no access, and very little news. All we could do was speculate, maybe go to a show…but I actually never saw the Moody Blues…they never toured near me during their heyday. And, the question was, how were they going to reproduce those sounds on stage? They didn’t have the samples and hard drives of today, this was before the synthesizer, all there was was the legendarily unreliable Mellotron.
“Hidden deep inside
Of you only”
We were singular. Not like the younger generations who needed to be members of the group. I only wish there was an internet back then so I could have connected with like-minded people.
So…
The band broke up, Lodge and Hayward, the seeming essence of the group, made a record together, and ultimately the band got back together, and by that time I was aware, paying attention, but I no longer bought the records. Times had changed. The free-for-all, the experimentation of the late sixties and early seventies, was history. Now it became about maintaining the lifestyle.
But there was a day…
I wanted to do a podcast with John Lodge, I did one with Justin Hayward, the timing was bad the last time he was in town and…
Now he’s gone.
Sure, the records remain, but something bigger has been lost.
First and foremost, only one Moody Blues member survives, Justin Hayward, the rest of them are dead. But we knew them when they were in their twenties, not that much older than us, but an entire lifetime apart.
And every single member of the Band is gone. EVERY SINGLE ONE!
How do we square this?
The classic rockers are too old to die young. You can’t say they were cut down before their time and sure, some people live to be a hundred, but not everybody.
When is it going to end?
And how do you live, how do you pass the time?
Do you marinate in the past or continue to push the envelope of the future, wasting so much time in the process.
Speaking of wasting time… We went to bars in the hope, in the HOPE, of meeting a member of the opposite sex. And how often did this happen? ALMOST NEVER! But we had to get out there, because you couldn’t meet anybody staying at home, but you did have your records…and they were better company, better friends, than what you usually found out and about.
Incels may be pissed they can’t get a date, but back in the day…you’d be stunned how many guys NEVER went on a date. It’s one thing to be rejected on Tinder, quite another for there to be no Tinder!
Never mind social media.
Our records were all we had. And the radio that played them. We got turned on to stuff and we played this music INCESSANTLY! Eventually with cassettes you could take it with you, but the Walkman really didn’t break through until the eighties. But at home, a record was always on, ALWAYS!
And the Moody Blues were one of the acts that I spun. Like Howard Stern, I thought they belonged in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame WAY before than they were inducted.
But the Moody Blues never filled a slot. The long-hair, motorcycle jacket rock critic type, the punk, they had no interest in the Moody Blues, the music was too smooth and intellectual for them. Thank god there are no gatekeepers today.
But there are no acts as good as the Moody Blues. And the Moody Blues weren’t the only ones!
82… Robert Redford lived until 89. Now if you live that long, we expect you to make it into your nineties, to essentially fall apart, not be cut down before.
Because if you’re vulnerable in your eighties…where does that leave Paul and Ringo?
And J.D. Souther had all his faculties, and BOOM!
An obituary does not do these people justice. They were part of the fabric, part of our everyday world, they influenced our thinking…you can’t see it in chart numbers, they weren’t worried about breaking records, no one needed an award, a Grammy was a joke, but…
The acts represented so much more back then.
And one of them was the Moody Blues.
And John Lodge was a member of the Moody Blues. I know it like I know my own name.
So I sit here and can’t say John Lodge got died before his time. And this makes me think of the nature of life. It’s a cycle. And when you’re young you think the world revolves around you and when you’re old you know it doesn’t and then you’re gone.
Then again, the Moody Blues left their mark, unlike the boys accumulating toys to impress…exactly who?
So I’m not devastated that John Lodge died. I was a bit shocked that it happened now. But they’re dropping like flies, it’s to be expected.
And I’d say that we’re next, but no one wants to admit it. Everybody thinks they’ve got years ahead. But one day you’re going to end up like Justin Hayward, the only member of your group still here.
And then you’ll be gone too.
