My Favorite Moodies | To Our Children's Children's Children (Reis) (Exp)

The Quintessential Moodies Album! | To Our Children's Children's Children (Reis) (Exp) | Moody Blues

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	• To Our Children's Children's Children (Reis) (Exp) Moody Blues Polydor / Umgd, 2008 average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

To Our Children's Children's Children

The release of the Moody Blues (Edge,Pender,Thomas,Lodge and Hayward) of this album was like an extention of all of their work from Days of Future Past to that point.
The album has more of a theme to it then the others and the joint efforts of all members makes it timeless piece.
Let yourself go and listen to the album, you'll find songs running through you head all day long.
Truly Moody Blues signature work!

My Favorite Moodies

...and this for an album that didn't yield a hit single, which was supposed to have been "Watching and Waiting". I'm surprised I'd not heard more from this album during the recent anniversary of the first moon landing.

From start to finish there's no other album from the Moodies as cohesive in theme, style, sound or performance. Close runners-up, yes, and Days of Future Passed and Seventh Sojourn surely rate among those. I also quite like Strange Times. But given the choice I keep reaching for this one first.

It's probably more a reflection of the quality of my hearing, but even though you can doubtless hear every note on every instrument played by every Moodie this re-re-(re?)master sounds just a touch harsher than its previous issues. That by itself doesn't make me want to hurry and buy the others.

Of the five bonus tracks, three are essentially tracks without the album segues, and the other two at least help answer a long-standing question as to how the Moodies performed two of their more complex songs live.

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The Quintessential Moodies Album!

As the album, To Our Children's Children's Children, nears it's 40th anniversary release in the U.S. (Jan. 1970), it seemed only fitting to review this quintesssential album. This album represents the best elements of any Moody Blues album. IMO, this album is the creative zenith, lyrically and musically, of all the Moody Blues albums. It is the last Moodies album introduced with the classic, Graeme Edge narrative (however, there is a narrative during the last song on their follow-up album, A Question Of Balance). It is also the last album which epitomizes usage of the mellotron (made famous by the group), as Mike Pinder started experimenting more with the Moog synthesizer on subsequent albums. This is truly one of rock music's finest moments!

Thematically, this album centers on exploring the vast reaches of the universe and the accompanying sense of personal loneliness which would naturally result from such an awe-inspiring quest. Such a lofty quest leaves large emotional holes in our very being. We discover that we are barely significant when juxtaposed to our massive universe. Such a grandiose legacy these occurrences would leave for our descendants! What the album concludes with (on "Watching and Waiting") is the need for human connections in the way of friendships and understanding-- things we have control over in our wondrous universe. I'm sure part of the inspiration for the album came from the Apollo 11 moon landing, just a few months prior to the album's release.

Musically, the album provides the usual cornucopia of instruments and musical styles. Some of Justin Hayward's finest guitar playing can be heard in the song, "Higher and Higher." This song really rocks! The track, "Beyond," is one of the Moodies rare, instrumental tracks. It segues into "Out and In," a beautiful ballad and showcase for Mike Pinder's vocals and mellotron. John Lodge's"Eyes of a Child" is in two parts. Part one is a lovely, plaintive ballad while part two is a rocker, reminiscent of "Ride My See Saw" from the In Search of the Lost Chord album. The exotic "Eternity Road" is perhaps Ray Thomas' finest Moodies composition, with an especially nice flute solo at the song's end. And "Gypsy" is a classic Justin Hayward rock ballad. The overall mood of the album conveys a sense of urgency when compared with the much mellower and more relaxed mood of their previous album, On The Threshold of a Dream.

All of the first, four Hayward / Lodge Moodies albums are "must haves" as far as creative content. However, TOCCC is the Moody Blues at their top form, especially in this newly re-mastered version from last year. A classic album that has stood well the test of time! Five + stars!

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Their best!

Can't go wrong with this one....It is soooo good! Their best in my opinion. I'm 56 and never get tired of this one.

Remembering the Moon Landing

To Our Children's Children's Children - The Moody Blues (3.92 stars)
Original Release: November 21, 1969

Songs:

Higher and Higher (4 stars)
This song starts with a rocket blast and continues on with that theme with a driving rhythm and energy that evoke a sense of a powerful rockets engines. Poetry describes the blast-off as well. This song sits as a dependent piece of the whole album and its meaning is derived therefrom.

Eyes of a Child Part 1 (4 stars)
The harp, keyboard and lyrics paint a scene in outer space where, perhaps, stillness. quietude and mystery prevail over the noisy Earth (audible rocket engines of the first song). The lyrics evoke the sense of a new world and a child-like perspective one has in it.

Floating (4 stars)
The next song lightens the mood and lyrics speak merrily of the freedoms of the moon walk. Joy is found in this new world The bass guitar provides a pleasantly pulsing rhythm that seems appropriate.

Eyes of a Child Part 2 (3 stars)
Higher energy reprise; lyrics speak of looking back at the earth. The view of the Earth from space is a classic image of our technological age and is, nonetheless, a mythic image for our modern times.

I Never Thought I'd Live to be a Hundred (4 stars)
Short, quiet guitar-vocal interlude. The lyrics are suggestive, but I am not clear on an interpretation.

Beyond (3 stars)
Instrumental that comes in and out of volume with various sound effects and a variety of musical themes. Suggests the passage of time as is, perhaps, a musical analogy to the next song's title. Maybe we are moving every outward past the various planets.

Out and In (4 stars)
Dreamy, calmly upbeat song about the new perspective beyond the planets, the wider universe that is there that we, perhaps, ignore in the heat and glare of our earthy lives. A journey is often needed to lend one perspective although to others it can seem like aimless wandering.

Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time) (5 stars)
The album picks up new energy with this great song. Keyboards come in on high and low notes. There is a complex mix of musical phrasing. We, the space travellers, have crossed some threshold into timelessness. Having moved this far away from earth we are:

"Left without a hope of coming home..."

Eternity Road (4 stars)
This song has the rhythm of a travelling song. The lyrics suggest that this outward journey has become an inward one.

Candle of Life (4 stars)
Against the vastness of space where you can only see distant stars whose light comes from the distant past you are truly alone. I imagine the rocket ship to be in shape similar to a candle. Maybe there are times in life when one has to have infinite patience with no promise of reward.

Sun is Still Shining (4 stars)
This song carries a more joyful, mystical tone with vaguely Indian sounding instrumentation. The Indian sounding instrumentation compliments the lyric's description of reincarnation of the spirit in the body as a choice.

I Never Thought I'd Live to be a Million (4 stars)
Musical interlude whose lyrics indicate that now instead of being 100 years old you are now 1,000,000 years old! You've come a long way!

Watching and Waiting (4 stars)
The mystic turns lonely, a sad ending...like one has forever drifted off into space and away from humanity. The acoustic guitar brings us back and forth between despair and hope. On a website I saw an image of the single cover art for this song showing the band playing in a cave with what I took to be some deserted alien world in the background...evocative of the band wanting to bring us on a journey far out into loneliness of being.

Album:
The Moody Blues were becoming experts on the concept album before any of the other well known prog groups (that I am familiar with) were releasing their first prog albums. Each song of any length has one or more catchy melodies that you can appreciate. Overall the album is existentially cathartic which reflects well the band's name. In the summer of '69 we had our first landing on the moon. This album was released about five months after that historic event. At this point in my reviews and within the scope of my knowledge I see The Moody Blues as the first serious developers of art rock beyond the early efforts of The Beatles with "Sgt. Pepper..."

Because of the composition of this album as a whole the individual songs do not shine so much on their own. I have rated the whole album as if it were a single song with 4 stars and I have given the songs this rating by default. It was the only way I felt I could fairly rate the album which is as has been said by others "greater than the sum of its parts".

MP3 recommendation:

Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time) (5 stars)
1. Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time) (5 stars)

The only way I see to reasonably carve up this album is to try out this song individually which, for me, stands alone better than the any of the other songs because of its dense musical richness. Otherwise this album is best enjoyed as a whole.

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The Moody Blues, To Our Children's Children's Children

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

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Tracks
Higher and Higher - The Moody Blues, Edge, Graeme | The Eyes of a Child, Pt. 1 - The Moody Blues, Lodge, John | Floating - The Moody Blues, Thomas, Ray | The Eyes of a Child, Pt. 2 - The Moody Blues, Lodge, John | I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Hundred - The Moody Blues, Hayward, Justin | Beyond - The Moody Blues, Edge, Graeme | Out and In - The Moody Blues, Lodge, John | Gypsy - The Moody Blues, Hayward, Justin | Eternity Road - The Moody Blues, Thomas, Ray | Candle of Life - The Moody Blues, Lodge, John | Sun Is Still Shining - The Moody Blues, Pinder, Michael | I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Million - The Moody Blues, Hayward, Justin | Watching and Waiting - The Moody Blues, Hayward, Justin | Gypsy [Alternate Version][*] - The Moody Blues, Hayward, Justin | Candle of Life [Alternate Version][*] - The Moody Blues, Lodge, John | Sun Is Still Shining [Extended Version][*] - The Moody Blues, Pinder, Michael | Have You Heard/The Voyage/Have You Heard [*] - The Moody Blues, Pinder, Michael | Legend of a Mind [Live][*][Version] - The Moody Blues, Thomas, Ray

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