The Moody Blues: “Candle of Life” (1969)
It’s hard to articulate what the Moody Blues have meant to me for the great majority of my life.
But on the occasion of the loss of singer/songwriter/bassist John Lodge, it seems like a good time to try.
Basically, since the day my older brother gave me a copy of the band’s 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, no band or artist has been more important in my life.
So many things about the Moodies were different from anything I’d heard before.
The conceptual albums with each song fading into the next. The arty opening track, always a thing of musical ambition and lyrical profundity. The five songwriters, each capable of taking the lead vocals on his own material, giving each album a breadth of songwriting and vocals unmatched in rock.
That gorgeous, otherworldly vocal blend, with John Lodge’s falsetto on top:
To my young ears it was a revelation. The kind of music perfectly suited for the experience vinyl records allowed, and the best vinyl records demanded. I absorbed Moody Blues albums, one after another, total immersion style–often lying on my bedroom floor with headphones on, gatefold album cover spread in front of me, reading the lyric sheet, pondering the album cover art. Doing all the things that made it a richer experience than a kid today can get from a download or a stream.
This was a stream of another kind, on which I was swept away to “far away forgotten lands, where empires have turned back to sand”.
And always John Lodge’s stratospheric falsetto was on top. And always his bass was on the bottom. He supplied both the band’s angelic corona and its rock and roll bona fides.
Each writer in the band brought his own style. Flutist Ray Thomas was the most fanciful. Justin Hayward was the band’s lead romantic and also a songwriter’s songwriter. Graeme Edge was the poet. Mike Pinder represented the band’s social consciousness.
And Lodge? Lodge was somewhat enigmatic. To a greater degree than the others he had the heart of a rocker. On the other hand, he could compose songs of such beauty they rivaled even those of Hayward.
The song he wrote on the occasion of the birth of his daughter is as gorgeous and understated a lullaby as you’ll ever hear from (just) a singer in a rock and roll band. And John the rocker had the instinct to let cello and glockenspiel accompany his tender lyric:
My daughter Emily has her name because this song–“Emily’s Song”–conveys the tender feelings of a father for a daughter better than any I know.
It was appropriate that my introduction to my favorite band was Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, because the album cover conveys the essence of my relationship with that eldest brother, who not only turned me on to the Moody Blues but to many of my favorite artists and authors. Of course, at about 9 years old your senses are keen and your emotions come in a deluge.
Nevertheless nothing has affected me as powerfully in the fifty years since than the Moody Blues and J.R.R. Tolkien–both passed along to me by that brother, the one I lost too soon. The band and the fantasy author always seemed to link in my mind. In my imagination, one was a soundtrack for the other.
So when I read years later that the Moodies themselves were heavily influenced by the author of The Lord of the Rings it all made sense. Those “far away, forgotten lands” I imagined as I listened may have been the same ones they and I envisioned when reading Tolkien.
And oh by the way, my Emily’s middle name is Arwen.
With few exceptions, each songwriter in the Moody Blues sang lead vocals on his own songs. It’s always been a point of curiosity to me that Lodge handed “Candle of Life” over to Justin Hayward to sing. But in this case I think it was the right choice. And John’s voice is still–as always–discernable, especially in the plaintive bridge.
RIP John Lodge. You and your four mates provided–still provide–the most powerful, inspiring, awe-inducing listening experience this listener has ever known.
There’s so much more that should be said about the magic in the music, and I wish I had time to write more at length. We all wish we could take your advice to “burn slowly the candle of life”.
But it’s not that kind of world these days. The world is spinning faster, and the days spent lying on my bedroom floor, lost in the flood of beauty from the headphones, are a memory. I have to work in the morning.
But as long as we’re around, the music will be too.
You won’t be forgotten.
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2015/02/17/songs-you-may-have-missed-523/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/11/21/songs-you-may-have-missed-253/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2012/09/16/songs-you-may-have-missed-173/
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2013/11/06/songs-you-may-have-missed-500/
Every Moment Has A Song 