The Heroic Kludge: The Moody Blues: "Question"

As 1970 unfolds, the various odd strands that make up music are showing up, some more prominent than others. This song stands not just for The Moody Blues themselves but the whole progressive rock movement, which produced, to quote from I Wanna Be Sedated by Phil Dellio and Scott Woods on Yes, “true seventies classics, exhibiting a musical sophistication and intellectual prowess that left Three Dog Night and Bobby Sherman fans dumbfounded.”

Some may have questioned rock’s need to progress, but as the 60s wound down it emerged, and The Moody Blues were right there in ’67 to stupefy the world with Days of Future Passed, a far cry from their piano-pounding days when the Brumbeat sound was rumbling and rolling as loud as it could. Once Denny Laine left – he who sang on the band’s only #1 their cover of “Go Now” – Lonnie Donegan and Marty Wilde protégé Justin Hayward stepped in, to keen and croon and cry along with the symphonic folk melodies and pastoral romps on that album. (I’m not sure if there wasn’t something in the Birmingham water that made Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood want to get classical instruments into their music, but they proceeded to put them together in a different way, making cellos rock out, etc.) By this time they were the most popular prog rock group in part because they could do songs like this one and actually make them work.

Kludging – the art of sticking two things together and making them function – is accepted in prog rock and indeed almost necessary, as tempos and moods and so on shift as the songs/movements/ideas alter and build up. The Beatles kludged, and so everyone did, when needed; and “Question” is obviously two songs stuck together to become one. The song starts at a Richie Havens-strumming-acoustically intense pace, and there’s the band, and Justin, crying about injustice and why the "thousand million" questions of “hate and death and war” (lest we forget Vietnam is ongoing) are never answered. The knocked-upon door never opens, and the world burns in its greed, as quickly as the song – which sounds like a horse bounding along at top speed* - goes. And then love is mentioned, and the song slows down…

…and the “we” of the first part becomes a confessional, “I’m looking for a miracle in my life” – and clearly the narrator has suffered, but has he found someone? Who is doing “those things” (ah, vagueness) to him? Will she be the one to change his life? Because he cannot just live life like anyone else; he is ambitious – all that door-knocking and idealism is exhausting – and needs someone to change his life, to touch his very soul. That’s a big order, but prog rock is never about mundane life and regular needs. It’s BIG and extravagant and symphonic, as the sudden explosion takes us back to the beginning, the knight off again on his self-appointed mission to get an answer, mellotrons as his sidekicks. The kludging works as in the middle he is in a way asking a question as well, asking this Other of his to become that miracle (once something like that is said it’s hard to ignore), to make his life better. It is slightly absurd that the song is all about the seeking and not finding, but then most of The Moodies’ music is about seeking (or learning to see) and then becoming enlightened, or at least reaching a higher state of understanding, if only for now.

Justin Hayward’s voice is warm and terribly noble – it’s impossible to think of him ever being sly or ironic – and this goes with the folk/rock/orchestral sweep of their music, which has none of the weirdness found elsewhere in prog rock (at this point King Crimson were their main rivals, though Yes were about to take center stage and do what Dellio and Woods mentioned). The Moodies themselves wore themselves out with recording and touring (there are only so many ways you can implore others to “open your eyes, look up to the skies and see” as Queen will eventually put it) but returned chipper and idealistic as ever in 1981, and got yet another US #1 album from the faithful who needed their warmth and optimism in the cold reality of the dawning of the Reagan era. (To put it another way, there were a lot of Baby Boomers who turned to their college-days heroes in their time of need.)

As dumbfounding as prog rock – popping up here as a single, but usually sold by the (double or triple sometimes) album – could be, The Moody Blues bring an urgency and eloquence that may sound silly to some but to a lot at the time made perfect sense. A new decade is taking shape and while some are going to cast off the 60s like so many unfashionable garments, there are those who are going to keep dreaming and questioning and longing for something more; as naïve as this song can be (hate and death and war are not new things, after all) it is a protest song, a song that can barely keep still, pushing the limits of what a single can be. The Moody Blues are making rebellious music for the suburbs, and later in the 70s the suburbs will produce rebellion that is just as heartfelt, if lacking in acoustic guitars and mellotrons.


*The Moodies' popularity in the US was due to their constant touring and the Romantic aspects of their work; there's a lot of Anglophiles who like to think the UK is full of such chivalrous and heroic figures, or at least want music that sounds like what they presume the UK used to be like. That, and they can understand Justin Hayward's voice a lot better than future bands like Slade, who sounded fine on the rocking-out level but speaking as an American I still can't make heads or tails of half of what he sings.

No Matter What: Shirley Bassey: "As Long As He Needs Me"

Even though we are now in the fall of 1960 (Kennedy newly elected; Lady Chatterley's Lover is cleared of obscenity, and in a few weeks Coronation Street is about to begin), in my mind's eye this song is played out on a stage that starts in the Victorian period with Charles Dickens acting out the death of Nancy (for this is her song, from Oliver!) in 1868, an experience he puts so much of himself into that he has to stop doing his readings on doctor's orders. Nancy is of course a sacrificial character, and while I don't know enough about Dickens to know why he would put himself through this time after time, he did, and his early death was perhaps due to these readings (not to mention the general headlong way he went about treating, or mistreating, his body). In the song Nancy's need for Sikes is so great that she cannot contemplate being without him, she is loyal and yet dies because that loyalty is falsely suspected. It is something of a doormat song, but Nancy, after her death, is triumphant - Oliver is safe and Fagin's gang are found out.

Bassey's voice, sounding youngish here, nevertheless are those of a woman who is determined to do the right thing, even if she suffers; a kind of nobility creeps in, the nobility of someone who perhaps has her doubts and might reveal them if you ask her carefully - but will not, as the phrase goes, give face. It is a big voice and needs big sentiments. (The problem with having a big voice like hers is getting those songs, as well as ones that work skilfully against it, as Bassey's latest album shows.) One man who was a figurative Oliver to Bassey's Nancy was just a toddler when this song was a hit; some 25 years later he would work with her in Switzerland (too excited for words and almost shy, not his usual self) on a song of profound and deep emotions - not to mention a cool sensuality. The man was Billy Mackenzie. So "As Long As He Needs Me" leads me directly to Switzerland, a recording studio, an hour of magic and nerves; and I wonder if Nancy isn't half singing to Oliver himself, that Bassey might have some story to tell about Mr. Mackenzie and that glorious day, when his voice blended with hers.

The Original Thing: The Four Aces: "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing"

Having successfully avoided being stomped to death by the seemingly-endless marching chorale of Mitch Miller, let’s go, dear readers, to a place far more desirable – a high, windy and misty hill. It’s the morning, and no one is around – it is blessedly quiet and beautiful, exactly the kind of place for a lovers’ rendevous. Is the world standing still? Is the man wearing a crown of gold? When the lovers kiss the world indeed does stand still, and when fingers touch, the heart learns to live and sing.

The word ‘splendor’ comes from the Latin word for ‘shine’ – thus, love creates things that are shiny, that reflect back to the world a richer, newer and yet fragile world that may well start on that high and windy hill but also may end there, if circumstances surrounding it – such as, in the case of this novel/movie, the girl’s family – don’t agree that he (a British reporter in the book, but in the movie since he’s played by William Holden, an American one) is an acceptable, desirable mate. Obstacles to love only increase it, however – and if the love has to come to a halt, that doesn’t mean it has to come to an end. Shiny ever-new love, rare and dogged, will continue, just as nature itself does.

This song marks a first here for the list – a song that attempts to define what love ‘is’. Never before, at least in this narrow channel, has love been talked about in any direct way – lovesickness, yes, joy and contentment, sure, but not love itself. (Well okay, but 'amore' is different and what is happening here isn't falling in love, so much as being in love, particularly of the doomed-but-dogged kind.) For those of you wondering when I am going to get to New Pop and then chastising yourself for being too early – well, you’re not. It is exactly this kind of song in particular that New Pop built itself on. (It could be called Original Pop.) Granted, the cliches of love are not a new thing in late ’55, but it is the putting them into a song part that counts. What is love? It is a many-splendored thing. It has many shiny parts (some most definitely yellow), it glows and twinkles and is a power unto itself. It is the same no matter if you are in the exotic world of Hong Kong or London or Pennsylvania, where the Four Aces were from. A high, windy, grassy hill; a clear proclamation to the world; a gentle melody full of soaring notes. The hills may be alive here, but it is the feeling of love, inside and out, that matters.

Shy Men Dance: Mantovani E Sua Orchestra: "Swedish Rhapsody"

If Ikea had been a multi-nation-occupying huge corporation in 1953, and you called them and were put on hold, this song is exactly what you would hear when waiting to discuss your problem. Jaunty, vivid, lively and everchanging, "Swedish Rhapsody" conjures up people dancing and eating salmon and potatoes and celebrating the wonders of good cheap home furnishings. It is almost oppressively happy, very hummable and makes for a perhaps misleading introduction to Swedish pop - but then, as far as I can gather, this is music to get drunk and dance to on midsummer's night, when the sun is out and stays out until late.

That said, let me turn to Mantovani for a moment. When I first saw that I had to write about him, I immediately thought of…someone non-musical, though also an Italian. A man who lived over a thousand years before the extremely successful and yet shy Venetian, who moved when he was a boy with his family to England. This non-musician was also shy, also a hard taskmaster (on himself) and was probably just as popular in his time…

…I am speaking, of course, of Virgil. He was born in Mantua, and therefore is also a ‘mantovanian’ (please correct me if I am wrong!) In Virgil’s writing there is elegance, feeling, and a certain bread-and-wine gusto that makes for a positively cinematic impact (if you get a good translation of The Aeneid). Mantovani strikes me as the same way – give him a good tune and he will make the most of it, giving it his full concentration (just as Virgil wrote only two or three lines per day, making sure they were just right). Virgil’s epic gave Rome a sense of history and purpose; Mantovani’s music helped people with their morale, gave them a picture of somewhere else (the exotic Sweden). There is nothing cold or forbidding here, with the woodwinds, strings and accordion – it is as hearty as feasts were in Virgil’s own time, feasts of ordinary people on special days, when they drank wine and danced around their own good and affordably-priced tables and chairs.