The Moody Blues - To Our Children's Children's Children (1969)

Steve:

For this album, the Moody Blues' musical arranging ambitions had reached such a high point that they consciously dialed it down for their next album (the more straightforward rock of A Question of Balance, 1970). The band's sound on this and the previous record (On the Threshold of a Dream) featured so many sounds alien to standard rock language that the band found it increasingly difficult to reproduce it on stage. The belated release of Caught Live +5 documents live material from around this time, and as a sympathetic fan who loves the band dearly, I have to be honest and say it's a pretty weak document. But in the studio, this stuff was magic, and To Our Children's Children's Children is arguably their most fully realized effort.

My own history with this album goes back as far as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories involve listening to this album on that clunky old stereo console Dan had in the early 1970s (see his "Father's Story" post). It still amazes me that as a toddler, I was choosing to spend a good chunk of my days fussing over records like this one. I did have a friend next door, Edward, but one of my few surviving memories of him involves his sister chasing me out of their yard with a broom. Being upset and feeling wronged, I called the police on her.  Thankfully the police never came because my mom caught me on the phone with the police and hung up the phone. Bear in mind I was 5 years old and didn't know what I was doing. I'm sure Vicky meant no harm. 

Harm or no, I derived great strength from the opening explosive tempest of "Higher and Higher", a track that still sounds like a raging inferno today. Its extreme speed and volume, coupled with its big-bang lyrical imagery ("Blasting, billowing, bursting forth with the power of ten billion butterfly sneezes"), provides one heck of an opening number. The remainder of side 1 continues to offer contrasts in speed and volume: slow quiet numbers ("Eyes of a Child", "I Never Thought I'd Live to be a Hundred") and loud fast numbers ("Eyes of a Child Part 2", "Beyond").  Side 2 focuses on more midtempo, complex numbers ("Eternity Road", "Candle of Life"), and the whole package feels very complete and well-rounded.

While I would never dare to choose a favorite among the Moodies' "Big Seven" albums released between 1967-1972, To Our Children's Children's Children has a density, complexity, and "bigness" that clearly makes it stand out in their discography. 

Dan:

For me, To Our Children's Children's Children is inspiring. I'm not a troubled soul but if I were, this album would provide great comfort. The key tracks that inform this assessment are 7-13, essentially the last song on side 1 and all of side 2. Track 7, "Out and In," is a call for self-understanding - the journey inward. It even contains a response to skeptics who might want to dismiss this calling as New Age piffle: "If you think it's a joke, that's all right do what you want to do. I've said my peace and I'll leave it all up to you." Note the spelling of peace instead of piece.

Side 2 opens with "Gypsy," a song that has received various interpretations, according to Internet chatters. Religious and astronomical interpretations aside, it's about anyone or anything that has left home to find a new place to be. Regardless of its meaning, "Gypsy" is a strong offering based solely on its musical merits. The last four songs form a kind of suite, all focused on themes of eternity, life, and hope. It's good fare that we had come to expect from The Moodies, but it's also free of experimental gimmicks. It feels like the band had arrived at their own self-understanding and crafted a near-perfect album using their collective strengths, including those of their producer, Tony Clarke.