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In Search of the Lost Chord
In Search of the Lost Chord is the third album by the Moody Blues, released in July 1968 on the Deram label.
The success of the band's previous record, Days of Future Passed, allowed the group additional studio time and creative flexibility in crafting a follow-up album. At the time, keyboardist Mike Pinder told the Melody Maker, "Albums give us a chance to experiment with new ideas. And buyers realize they offer more than just music to dance to. They can sit down and listen – get away on a trip of musical exploration." Guitarist Justin Hayward recalled that In Search of the Lost Chord "was when I feel we found our soul and direction. It was when everything gelled musically."
Like its predecessor, In Search of the Lost Chord features a conceptual theme. The songs of In Search of the Lost Chord form a loose concept around a theme of quest and discovery, including both world exploration and inner self-realization. Mike Pinder explained, "The Moodies were really the first rock band to do conceptual albums and to work with a symphony orchestra. Because of that, I realized that so many of my ideas were linked-up to this whole area of conceptual thinking and of communicating ideas to people by asking questions musically and through the lyrics."
The album takes inspiration from the spirit of inner exploration that characterized the psychedelic era. Justin Hayward acknowledged the influence of psychedelic drugs on the band's creative process: "Oh, we all dabbled in all sorts of things. Well, all of us apart from John. He never participated. Usually, they were the more psychedelic type of drugs. I must admit we always had a great time on acid. And those trips inspired a lot of our music at the time."[citation needed] He commented, "I think we were able to take those experiences and hopefully pass them on. That’s the only credit, I think, we can take." Keyboardist Mike Pinder said, "Listening to music, you enjoy it most when you're in a meditative state and I think the drug influence was able to put you into that state instantly."
Hayward elaborated on the band's spirit of curiosity and quest for knowledge: "Myself, Pinder and Ray were dabbling in everything, trying to guzzle as much spiritual and psychedelic information as we could possibly get. We were racing toward it all the time - reading every book, investigating every kind of religion, having all sorts of psychedelic experiences. We met Timothy Leary in 1968 on our first tour of America, me Mike and Ray stayed with him on his ranch for a week or so, and we had a wonderful time. We went through a lot of religious experiences together, we tended to read the same books. I remember us all reading the Bhagavad Gita, and The Tibetan Book of The Dead, and doing all of these things together. So what we were saying was sincere, we weren't just picking up bits of information and using them in songs. We were actually living this stuff at the time, I suppose like many other people, but we took it a lot more seriously than most other musicians, and we were able to put it into music in a more accessible way than some of the other musicians who were really seriously into it, but who were inaccessible in their music."
Pinder reflects on the album's themes in a 1976 radio interview: "We carefully considered every word of the lyrics, to make sure it was balanced, that it didn't make statements, as in 'this is the answer'. We're not giving the answers, for it's the asking of the question that brings about the answer, and the answer is always an intelligible thing. I want to try to get across to people that these are just experiences that people are having, put down, and shared on records. I buy records that I'm getting something out of other than just entertainment. I'm hoping to hear somebody say something that I want to hear, and know that it's coming from a person I can trust and believe that they've had that experience."
In Search of the Lost Chord opens with a poem by Graeme Edge, which was spoken by Edge himself (rather than Mike Pinder as in most cases). Its words describe how a sensory experience can serve as the impetus for the beginning of a journey.
The spoken introduction segues into the rock song "Ride My See-Saw", the album's lead single. John Lodge explains the inspiration for its lyrics: "That song was about the freedom which I felt I'd received, both personally and as part of The Moody Blues." He said, "The song was about leaving school and going out into the world and finding out it wasn't what you thought it was and it isn't what you were taught in school. It is actually much bigger than that. 'Ride My See-Saw' was about riding my life and seeing where we go with this thing. I am still doing that now." Justin Hayward remembered, "My memory of it was like a jam session in the studio. We kinda got stuck with it, but it was a great. We had Graeme doing that di-da-da, di-da-da on the snare drum — that's how it started –and the guitar riff. But we had no song, and then John came back with some lyrics and the bones of the song. We recorded that sometime after we'd recorded the backing track." Lodge said, "I wrote that song on bass. For that time, there are some really nice chord changes, the minors and the majors. I wanted the middle to be only harmonies and it was. We had these soaring three and four parts going around. We were trying to find a way to get the rhythm really right, as it has a driving rhythm." Guitarist Hayward cited the solo as perhaps his favorite in the band's catalog: "That guitar was a Telecaster I had when I was a kid. I remember playing the whole track from start to finish, just kind of making it up as I went along, and I got to the end of it, and everyone said, 'Great!' 'Fantastic!' And I said, 'It's a bit weird. It's a bit out of time,' and they said, 'No, no. We loved it.' All my other solos were carefully constructed and thought out, but that is my favorite."
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In Search of the Lost Chord
In Search of the Lost Chord is the third album by the Moody Blues, released in July 1968 on the Deram label.
The success of the band's previous record, Days of Future Passed, allowed the group additional studio time and creative flexibility in crafting a follow-up album. At the time, keyboardist Mike Pinder told the Melody Maker, "Albums give us a chance to experiment with new ideas. And buyers realize they offer more than just music to dance to. They can sit down and listen – get away on a trip of musical exploration." Guitarist Justin Hayward recalled that In Search of the Lost Chord "was when I feel we found our soul and direction. It was when everything gelled musically."
Like its predecessor, In Search of the Lost Chord features a conceptual theme. The songs of In Search of the Lost Chord form a loose concept around a theme of quest and discovery, including both world exploration and inner self-realization. Mike Pinder explained, "The Moodies were really the first rock band to do conceptual albums and to work with a symphony orchestra. Because of that, I realized that so many of my ideas were linked-up to this whole area of conceptual thinking and of communicating ideas to people by asking questions musically and through the lyrics."
The album takes inspiration from the spirit of inner exploration that characterized the psychedelic era. Justin Hayward acknowledged the influence of psychedelic drugs on the band's creative process: "Oh, we all dabbled in all sorts of things. Well, all of us apart from John. He never participated. Usually, they were the more psychedelic type of drugs. I must admit we always had a great time on acid. And those trips inspired a lot of our music at the time."[citation needed] He commented, "I think we were able to take those experiences and hopefully pass them on. That’s the only credit, I think, we can take." Keyboardist Mike Pinder said, "Listening to music, you enjoy it most when you're in a meditative state and I think the drug influence was able to put you into that state instantly."
Hayward elaborated on the band's spirit of curiosity and quest for knowledge: "Myself, Pinder and Ray were dabbling in everything, trying to guzzle as much spiritual and psychedelic information as we could possibly get. We were racing toward it all the time - reading every book, investigating every kind of religion, having all sorts of psychedelic experiences. We met Timothy Leary in 1968 on our first tour of America, me Mike and Ray stayed with him on his ranch for a week or so, and we had a wonderful time. We went through a lot of religious experiences together, we tended to read the same books. I remember us all reading the Bhagavad Gita, and The Tibetan Book of The Dead, and doing all of these things together. So what we were saying was sincere, we weren't just picking up bits of information and using them in songs. We were actually living this stuff at the time, I suppose like many other people, but we took it a lot more seriously than most other musicians, and we were able to put it into music in a more accessible way than some of the other musicians who were really seriously into it, but who were inaccessible in their music."
Pinder reflects on the album's themes in a 1976 radio interview: "We carefully considered every word of the lyrics, to make sure it was balanced, that it didn't make statements, as in 'this is the answer'. We're not giving the answers, for it's the asking of the question that brings about the answer, and the answer is always an intelligible thing. I want to try to get across to people that these are just experiences that people are having, put down, and shared on records. I buy records that I'm getting something out of other than just entertainment. I'm hoping to hear somebody say something that I want to hear, and know that it's coming from a person I can trust and believe that they've had that experience."
In Search of the Lost Chord opens with a poem by Graeme Edge, which was spoken by Edge himself (rather than Mike Pinder as in most cases). Its words describe how a sensory experience can serve as the impetus for the beginning of a journey.
The spoken introduction segues into the rock song "Ride My See-Saw", the album's lead single. John Lodge explains the inspiration for its lyrics: "That song was about the freedom which I felt I'd received, both personally and as part of The Moody Blues." He said, "The song was about leaving school and going out into the world and finding out it wasn't what you thought it was and it isn't what you were taught in school. It is actually much bigger than that. 'Ride My See-Saw' was about riding my life and seeing where we go with this thing. I am still doing that now." Justin Hayward remembered, "My memory of it was like a jam session in the studio. We kinda got stuck with it, but it was a great. We had Graeme doing that di-da-da, di-da-da on the snare drum — that's how it started –and the guitar riff. But we had no song, and then John came back with some lyrics and the bones of the song. We recorded that sometime after we'd recorded the backing track." Lodge said, "I wrote that song on bass. For that time, there are some really nice chord changes, the minors and the majors. I wanted the middle to be only harmonies and it was. We had these soaring three and four parts going around. We were trying to find a way to get the rhythm really right, as it has a driving rhythm." Guitarist Hayward cited the solo as perhaps his favorite in the band's catalog: "That guitar was a Telecaster I had when I was a kid. I remember playing the whole track from start to finish, just kind of making it up as I went along, and I got to the end of it, and everyone said, 'Great!' 'Fantastic!' And I said, 'It's a bit weird. It's a bit out of time,' and they said, 'No, no. We loved it.' All my other solos were carefully constructed and thought out, but that is my favorite."