Moody Blues
This time last week, we were preparing to go see the Moody Blues in concert here in Huntsville. What an excellent concert it was, too. I won the tickets in a local contest and that made it all better than ever.
The Moodies have been my very favorite band since 1968. I think I was barely 14 - maybe it was early 1969 and I was closer to 15 than I remember - when my friend, Albert Spies, brought over "On The Threshold of a Dream" (along with a couple of other artists/albums) and I fell in love with the Moodies. Their voices are so distinctive and their messages so consistently positive - they marked me as their own forever with their music.
I listened to the Moodies obsessively for about ten years, I think, eventually owning almost all their albums. The last one I bought was "Octave" and after that I just didn't buy any more. I don't know why. Their later music is very different from the early stuff, no surprise there, and maybe I just outgrew the old and the new just didn't speak to my needs as a young mother, etc. I really don't know.
I saw them in concert once before, in Mobile, but I don't remember it being as perfect as the one last week. This concert truly put me into a place of introspection and memory. I was so very pleased with myself to realize that I knew every single song they played! I knew the words and the music.
Then of course I began wondering how it would feel to be playing the same songs for over 40 years, knowing that wherever you went to play you'd be playing the same things over and over, and ending with "Nights In White Satin" because it's the one everyone recognizes. I love that song but it's not my favorite by far. In fact, I'd be hard put to name my favorite: so many are so meaningful to me.
And in the end, it's the melody and the perfectly matched message that resonate within me. The Moodies have always been about the same things that are important to me now, and it's hard to know how much they have influenced that. I know that the most important thing in human life is the love we feel and share; I know that life is so very brief; I know that there is more to reality than the things we can directly experience; and I know that magic is all around us. Children are blessings. Life is sweet. Love is everything.
Burn slowly the candle of life.
The Moodies have been my very favorite band since 1968. I think I was barely 14 - maybe it was early 1969 and I was closer to 15 than I remember - when my friend, Albert Spies, brought over "On The Threshold of a Dream" (along with a couple of other artists/albums) and I fell in love with the Moodies. Their voices are so distinctive and their messages so consistently positive - they marked me as their own forever with their music.
I listened to the Moodies obsessively for about ten years, I think, eventually owning almost all their albums. The last one I bought was "Octave" and after that I just didn't buy any more. I don't know why. Their later music is very different from the early stuff, no surprise there, and maybe I just outgrew the old and the new just didn't speak to my needs as a young mother, etc. I really don't know.
I saw them in concert once before, in Mobile, but I don't remember it being as perfect as the one last week. This concert truly put me into a place of introspection and memory. I was so very pleased with myself to realize that I knew every single song they played! I knew the words and the music.
Then of course I began wondering how it would feel to be playing the same songs for over 40 years, knowing that wherever you went to play you'd be playing the same things over and over, and ending with "Nights In White Satin" because it's the one everyone recognizes. I love that song but it's not my favorite by far. In fact, I'd be hard put to name my favorite: so many are so meaningful to me.
And in the end, it's the melody and the perfectly matched message that resonate within me. The Moodies have always been about the same things that are important to me now, and it's hard to know how much they have influenced that. I know that the most important thing in human life is the love we feel and share; I know that life is so very brief; I know that there is more to reality than the things we can directly experience; and I know that magic is all around us. Children are blessings. Life is sweet. Love is everything.
Burn slowly the candle of life.