During my first 2 years in college, I lived in a dorm. My friends and I started a type of ritual, every Monday thru Thursday in the afternoons after our last class and before dinner. The first 4 that finished classes for the day met in one of our rooms to play spades or hearts until dinner-time. The choice of music to be played fell to the room owner(s), but the first album (yes, back then there weren't cd's) was always the same one. I really wasn't into this group, though I was into their genre. But after hearing this album day after day, it grew on me to the point where I bought my own copy. Once the cd era began, this was one of the first ones I wanted to get on cd, but I could never find it. I looked and looked, but was never able to locate it. I was told several times that it was never made into a cd, which I found hard to believe, but as the years went by, I began to believe that.....
Flash-forward to last month, 2009...
We recently switched from satellite to FIOS for our television service. In doing so, we picked up some channels that we didn't get before, one of them being VH1-Classic. I love this channel. Among the many different programs they have are stories about the making of classic albums and showing classic live concerts of bands from the 60's-80's - some of which were recorded in the particular bands heyday, or recorded within the past several years. I was flipping around the channels a couple of weeks ago and caught a concert from 2 or 3 years ago, recorded at the House of Blues/LA from the band, which made me think back to the album that I could never find on cd. It had been many years since I had last searched for this cd, so seeing them made me try again. The internet is a wonderful thing.....
Today, Oct 29, 2009....
Delivered today, shipped from an import cd store (in of all places, Kentucky), was this cd....
I put it on as soon as it arrived. It's a rainy, overcast day in DFW today and the music fit perfectly. I sat, reading the paper, being taken back to a dorm room in the late 70's. I found myself singing along to songs I hadn't heard in 20 years.....
Why do we never get an answer
When we're knocking at the door
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war?
'Cause when we stop and look around us,
There is nothing that we need,
In a world of persecution
That is burning in its greed......
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....
This cd will be in my car for the foreseeable future. When I get sick of Rush or Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, I'll just hit "CD" and go back in time.
(I found this on Wikipedia - I had no idea about the history of this album. Since I wasn't into The Moody Blues, I didn't know about them being on a self-imposed sabbatical or that many of the songs on this album were different mixes than the versions on the original albums.)
3 comments:
Oh man. There was a 7 foot tall albino (I exaggerate-- tall and pale) guy in my dorm who was a Moody Blues fanatic. Now I'll be trying to remember his name all day.
Smiley! That's what people called him. I don't think I ever heard his real name. Now I'm wanting to hear some Moody Blues. Pretty sure there's none in our house.
What's interesting to me is the difference between the mood/style on the cd vs the concert I watched. While I do understand that you want to be more upbeat live, those songs rocked as compared to the versions on the album.
I love moody stuff and I'm not complaining, but I guess my memories have really faded over time - I truly thought this cd was more "rock" than it is. That being said, listening to this today while it's raining is so perfect. Same for snow I think. Not really summer type music.
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