In Search of the Lost Chord is the third album by the Moody Blues, released in July 1968 on the Deram label.
Background The success of the band's previous record, Days of Future Passed, allowed the group additional studio time and creative flexibility in crafting a follow-up album. At the time, keyboardist Mike Pinder told the Melody Maker, "Albums give us a chance to experiment with new ideas. And buyers realize they offer more than just music to dance to. They can sit down and listen – get away on a trip of musical exploration."The Five Wise Men Of Pop. October 1968. Melody Maker. Guitarist Justin Hayward recalled that In Search of the Lost Chord "was when I feel we found our soul and direction. It was when everything gelled musically."
Writing Like its predecessor, In Search of the Lost Chord features a conceptual theme. The songs of In Search of the Lost Chord form a loose concept around a theme of quest and discovery, including both world exploration and inner self-realization. Mike Pinder explained, "The Moodies were really the first rock band to do conceptual albums and to work with a symphony orchestra. Because of that, I realized that so many of my ideas were linked-up to this whole area of conceptual thinking and of communicating ideas to people by asking questions musically and through the lyrics."
The album takes inspiration from the spirit of inner exploration that characterized the psychedelic era. Justin Hayward acknowledged the influence of psychedelic drugs on the band's creative process: "Oh, we all dabbled in all sorts of things. Well, all of us apart from John. He never participated. Usually, they were the more psychedelic type of drugs. I must admit we always had a great time on acid. And those trips inspired a lot of our music at the time." He commented, "I think we were able to take those experiences and hopefully pass them on. That’s the only credit, I think, we can take." Keyboardist Mike Pinder said, "Listening to music, you enjoy it most when you're in a meditative state and I think the drug influence was able to put you into that state instantly."The Moody Blues Album Covers by Phil Travers. November 18, 2020. The Music Aficionado.
Hayward elaborated on the band's spirit of curiosity and quest for knowledge: "Myself, Pinder and Ray were dabbling in everything, trying to guzzle as much spiritual and psychedelic information as we could possibly get. We were racing toward it all the time - reading every book, investigating every kind of religion, having all sorts of psychedelic experiences. We met Timothy Leary in 1968 on our first tour of America, me Mike and Ray stayed with him on his ranch for a week or so, and we had a wonderful time. We went through a lot of religious experiences together, we tended to read the same books. I remember us all reading the Bhagavad Gita, and The Tibetan Book of The Dead, and doing all of these things together. So what we were saying was sincere, we weren't just picking up bits of information and using them in songs. We were actually living this stuff at the time, I suppose like many other people, but we took it a lot more seriously than most other musicians, and we were able to put it into music in a more accessible way than some of the other musicians who were really seriously into it, but who were inaccessible in their music."Barajas, Vincent. Gypsy (Of A Strange And Distant Time): Moody Blue Justin Hayward Makes Tracks For The Future. August 14, 2000. Outre.
Pinder reflects on the album's themes in a 1976 radio interview: "We carefully considered every word of the lyrics, to make sure it was balanced, that it didn't make statements, as in 'this is the answer'. We're not giving the answers, for it's the asking of the question that brings about the answer, and the answer is always an intelligible thing. I want to try to get across to people that these are just experiences that people are having, put down, and shared on records. I buy records that I'm getting something out of other than just entertainment. I'm hoping to hear somebody say something that I want to hear, and know that it's coming from a person I can trust and believe that they've had that experience."Moerman, Mark J. "Michael Pinder: One Step into the Light". Higher and Higher. Issue 3. Autumn 1984.
In Search of the Lost Chord opens with a poem by Graeme Edge, which was spoken by Edge himself (rather than Mike Pinder as in most cases). Its words describe how a sensory experience can serve as the impetus for the beginning of a journey.
The spoken introduction segues into the rock song "Ride My See-Saw", the album's lead single. John Lodge explains the inspiration for its lyrics: "That song was about the freedom which I felt I'd received, both personally and as part of The Moody Blues."Powell, Mark. Liner notes essay, 2008 In Search of the Lost Chord SACD Deluxe Edition. He said, "The song was about leaving school and going out into the world and finding out it wasn't what you thought it was and it isn't what you were taught in school. It is actually much bigger than that. 'Ride My See-Saw' was about riding my life and seeing where we go with this thing. I am still doing that now."Wright, Jeb. CRR Interview - John Lodge – a Long Time Ago, and a Long Time from Now! Classic Rock Revisited. Justin Hayward remembered, "My memory of it was like a jam session in the studio. We kinda got stuck with it, but it was a great. We had Graeme doing that di-da-da, di-da-da on the snare drum — that's how it started –and the guitar riff. But we had no song, and then John came back with some lyrics and the bones of the song. We recorded that sometime after we'd recorded the backing track." Lodge said, "I wrote that song on bass. For that time, there are some really nice chord changes, the minors and the majors. I wanted the middle to be only harmonies and it was. We had these soaring three and four parts going around. We were trying to find a way to get the rhythm really right, as it has a driving rhythm." Guitarist Hayward cited the solo as perhaps his favorite in the band's catalog: "That guitar was a Telecaster I had when I was a kid. I remember playing the whole track from start to finish, just kind of making it up as I went along, and I got to the end of it, and everyone said, 'Great!' 'Fantastic!' And I said, 'It's a bit weird. It's a bit out of time,' and they said, 'No, no. We loved it.' All my other solos were carefully constructed and thought out, but that is my favorite."McCarty, Michael. A Question of Balance: Interview with Moody Blues Guitarist Justin Hayward. Esoteria-land. January 17, 2015.
The author of "Dr. Livingstone, I Presume", Ray Thomas, described the song as "a bit of fun amidst all the seriousness of the other songs on the album." The verses recount the journeys of David Livingstone, Robert Falcon Scott and Christopher Columbus, and question whether each explorer found fulfillment in their respective searches.
"House of Four Doors" continues the theme of discovery, and serves as an introduction to "Legend of a Mind". Lodge remembered, "I wrote a song once called 'House of Four Doors', and that really is about an approach to life that I think everyone can have. Open a door, see where it takes you. It might not be where you want to go, but at least you're going along, and you don't know where it'll go eventually." He said, "When you open a door, you never know what's gonna come in. You've got to be positive enough to open the door. If you don't know what door you're opening, you're never gonna find out." Bassist Lodge plays cello on the track, tuned as a bass guitar. He remembered, "I played the cello on that track, and tuned it the same way as a bass guitar. I never realized that a cello wasn't actually tuned that way at all, but we got the desired effect!"
"Legend of a Mind", the first song written for the album, dates from the Days of Future Passed sessions. It was inspired by the LSD advocacy of Timothy Leary. Hayward remembered, "Some of us in the band — and this was 1966, '67 — were going through our own psychic experiences, as a lot of musicians were at the time, probably being led by the Beatles. We were reading a lot of underground press and reading about Tim Leary, so we put him in... The song is a very tongue-in-cheek version, a very cheeky English version of what we thought things would be like in San Francisco in the 'flower power' days... It was tongue in cheek, but with a background of serious meaning. It did mean something to us. We were using a lot of phrases of the time, extracts from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, talking about the astral plane and so forth, and it's a reflection of that."Catlin, Roger. 1996. Hartford Courant.
The songs on the second side of the album deal with more personal themes of self-discovery. "Voices in the Sky" explores spirituality while "The Best Way to Travel" addresses psychedelic imagination. The lyrics of the latter song question if experience is just "light passing by on a screen", suggesting that if our perception of life is really just an illusion, then meditation can help us understand the true nature of existence.
"Visions of Paradise" and "The Actor" explore love and reflective introspection. In an interview, Hayward remembered the context that inspired the lyrics to "The Actor": "Late at night, the road outside in Bayswater, quiet for a while, all alone in the world (for a bit), being in love but struggling with relationships."
The album concludes with "Om", featuring a spoken-word introduction by Edge titled "The Word". The poem features the line "Between the eyes and ears there lie the sounds of color and the light of a sigh". Edge explained, "You can listen to your favorite piece of music fifty times and still get something from it. But the best movie you've ever seen, you get ten, eleven, and it's done. Because music is hot and the visual is sort of cold. Music is tempo, form, and pitch. Through the eyes, you've got color, perspective, and form. So you get through the eyes the same way you get through the ears, with really creative vibrations."
"Om" is an ode to transcendentalism and the use of mantras in meditation. The album's liner notes provide an explanation of the concept of a mantra, in case the group's audience at the time was unfamiliar:
Recording "Legend of a Mind" was recorded January 13, 1968. The remainder of the album was recorded between May and June. Like its predecessor, the album was recorded at Studio One at Decca Studios in West Hampstead with producer Tony Clarke and engineer Derek Varnals. The album was largely recorded using 4-track technology, though Decca's new 8-track recording system was installed during the sessions. "Visions of Paradise" was the last song recorded to 4 tracks, on 4 June. Vocal overdubs were made on 5 and 6 June to "Ride My See-Saw" and "Om" using the new system. The final two tracks recorded for the album, "The Word" and "Departure", were both recorded using the new 8-track console on 12 June.
The surprise success of Days of Future Passed gave the group new clout with their record label and artistic freedom in the studio. Hayward remembered, "We were also fortunate to be with a record company, Decca, who were old music men, a lot of the time making radar systems, who were technically superb with a brilliant studio and staff in West Hampstead. Better than EMI in my opinion. After Days, which was a lucky accident, Sir Edward Lewis came to us and said, I don't know what you boys are doing, but it's great. Whenever you want the studio just make a booking and it was a dream to young musicians like us. The sleeves, just do what you want."