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Update January 2024: after further listening I can discern some weaknesses that may explain why this was not many people's favorite Moody's album. Above all, it has no big hits or rockers, nothing like Ride My See Saw, Nights in White Satin, or I'm Just a Singer (In a rock and roll band). Rather, TOCCC came at a more reflective point in their career where they wanted a concept album with an integrated point of view, and didn't focus on the One Big Hit. TOCCC, starting with a post-apocalyptic worldview of man relearning his relationship to the world, and venturing out to the entire universe - see the song Out and In, especially for this existential perspective.
Second, its best song Watching and Waiting is simply beautiful, but more than a little sad and speaks of loneliness and not wanting and loving, as the best ballads have done through history. Every time I play this on my guitar I come near tears. Still, it is one of their best songs for sheer arrangement, melody, and performance.
The Moody's other albums had more hits but did not have the cumulative impact on the listener as this one. Please read on for more song analysis.
The Moody Blues had so many great songs and albums it's hard to pick the best. This one is something of a sentimental favorite for personal reasons, but I also think it has the highest standard of quality across all its songs. There is not a weak song in the bunch. It's also their most successful "concept" album, with a theme describing humanity reborn after an apocalypse, and searching for a new meaning of existence. Different songs explore different aspects of an "existential" worldview. This is a frequent theme in the Moody's music, which gave them a reputation as pop music philosophers they tried to shed later in their career.
Here are highlights from the songs:
- Higher and Higher starts with a dissonant blast of sound (that drives my foreign born wife crazy but was not too unusual in rock music in the early 1970's) signifying the apocalypse, perhaps a nuclear war, and segueing into some hard rock instrumental, with a good guitar line.
- The Eyes of a Child begins a 3-part mini-suite with a gentle ballad describing how a child perceives the world, heavy on the choral harmonizing, followed by Floating, a lyrical, veddy British and lighthearted fantasy of child's playtime, that will evoke Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, and is capped with a rocking version of Eyes of a Child.
- Two quiet songs about Never Thought I'd live to be a Hundred and ...Million feature delicate acoustic guitar and more lyricizing on what to expect out of life.
- Beyond is a somewhat mystical instrumental featuring Mike Pinder's mellotron and stark harmonic changes, reminiscent of Also Sprach Zarathustra, of 2001: A Space Odessey. I think it's one of their best instrumentals, an improvement on the tutti-frutti stuff in previous albums.
- Out and In continues the existential lyrical theme, to a medium rocking tempo. It's a very standard Moodys type of tune, and pleasant and very hummable, if not one of the strongest on the album. Great guitar comping on the fade-out.
- Gypsy is the most dramatic song of all, positing a man contemplating our existence and feeling "Left without a hope of coming home." Supported by excellent riffing by guitarist Justin Hayward, who always manages to bring drama to his solos on the lower registers.
- Eternity Road is another existential lyric, with beautiful harmonies and arrangement.
- Candle of Life talks about cherishing life and not wasting it. This beautiful song more than any other has the European sound with instrumentation balanced with vocals, lush mellotron-strings, and full of echo which Abba and other bands made popular over the next 20 years.
- Sun is Still Shining has an Eastern feel to it dominated by a single major chord like George Harrison would have written. I think I hear a sitar. This simple song is like comfort-food, and lays the ground for:
- Watching and Waiting, a painfully beautiful ballad about the need for a true friend in a confusing, threatening world. Beautifully sung by Ray Thomas. One of the Moody's all time greatest songs.
The rest of the CD is bonus music with three slightly different versions, and three "live" songs that sound very rough compared to the studio music.
Thanks for reading! I have returned to this album 40 years after (stupidly) selling and giving away my LP collection. I recommend To Our Childrens Childrens Children if you had to listen or buy just one Moody Blues album. There may be only 2 hits on the album but the songs flow perfectly together.
Dmckinleyp, 2023
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Track Listing
1. Higher and Higher2. Eyes of a Child, Pt. 13. Floating4. Eyes of a Child, Pt. 25. I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Hundred6. Beyond7. Out and In8. Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)9. Eternity Road10. Candle of Life11. Sun Is Still Shining12. I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Million13. Watching and Waiting
