In Search of the Lost Chord

In Search of the Lost Chord
Studio album by The Moody Blues
Released	26 July 1968
Recorded	January–June 1968
Studio	Decca, London
Genre	Psychedelic rock, progressive rock
Length	42:07
Label	Deram
Producer	Tony Clarke
The Moody Blues chronology
Days of Future Passed (1967) In Search of the Lost Chord (1968) On the Threshold of a Dream (1969)
Singles from In Search of the Lost Chord
"Voices in the Sky" Released: 28 June 1968 "Ride My See-Saw" Released: 12 October 1968

In Search of the Lost Chord is the third album by The Moody Blues, released in July 1968 on the Deram label.

Writing

In Search of the Lost Chord is a concept album around a broad theme of quest and discovery, including world exploration ("Dr. Livingstone, I Presume"), music and philosophy through the ages ("House of Four Doors"), lost love ("The Actor"), spiritual development ("Voices in the Sky"), knowledge in a changing world ("Ride My See-Saw"), higher consciousness ("Legend of a Mind"), imagination ("The Best Way to Travel"), and space exploration ("Departure"). Space exploration would go on to become the theme of the group's 1969 album To Our Children's Children's Children, inspired by and dedicated to the Apollo 11 mission. The mysterious "lost chord" of the title is revealed to be the mantra "Om" (in the last stanza of Graeme Edge's poem "The Word"). According to keyboardist Mike Pinder, the title was inspired by Jimmy Durante's humorous song "I'm the Guy that Found the Lost Chord", itself a reference to "The Lost Chord" by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

John Lodge explains the inspiration for the lyrics of the opening track, "Ride My See-Saw": "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." Justin Hayward remembers, "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 continues, "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 cites 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."

"House of Four Doors" continues the theme of discovery, and serves as an introduction to the album's centerpiece, "Legend of a Mind". Lodge remembers, "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."

"Legend of a Mind", The first song written for the album, dates from the Days of Future Past sessions. It was inspired by the LSD advocacy of Timothy Leary. Hayward remembers, "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." Song author Ray Thomas continues, "I'd read about him, I hadn't met him at that point. But "Legend of a Mind" is very tongue-in-cheek because I saw the astral plane as like a psychedelically painted biplane which the hippies hired for a trip around the San Francisco Bay. Tim Leary was all involved in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and I had been reading that. So I just wrote Timothy Leary's dead and then said no, no, no, he's just outside his body looking in. I was just taking a piss really. Just having a laugh at all the hippies and what they believed in and everything in the states. I never ever took any drugs with him and never saw him take any drugs either."

The album features two spoken word poems, like its predecessor. "Departure" and "The Word", both written by Graeme Edge, are performed by both Mike Pinder and Edge.

Recording

Sessions for the album commenced in January 1968 with the recording of Thomas's "Legend of a Mind". Like its predecessor, the album was recorded at Decca Studios with producer Tony Clarke. Whereas the London Festival Orchestra had supplemented the group on Days of Future Passed, the Moody Blues played all instruments themselves, a total of thirty-three different instruments. Indian instruments such as the sitar (played by guitarist Justin Hayward), the tambura (played by Mike Pinder) and the tabla (played by drummer and percussionist Graeme Edge) made audio appearances on several tracks (notably "Departure", "Visions of Paradise" and "Om"). Other instruments unusual for this group were also used, notably the oboe (played by percussionist/flute player Ray Thomas) and the cello (played by bassist John Lodge, who tuned it as a bass guitar). The mellotron, played by Pinder, produced many string and horn embellishments.

With the album, the group aspired to make the most of both the broad range of instrumentation and Decca's stereo recording technology. John Lodge remembers: "Once we fully understood what stereo was after listening to what other people did with it, we decided we wanted to have a real panorama for In Search of the Lost Chord where the music would come across as a complete picture. Where would the tambourine be? Where would the acoustic guitar be? Should it be in the front or in the back, and should we put a bit of echo on it so it disappears away? We worked really hard with that stereo mix to give you a really full experience of sound as if a satellite were spinning around your head."

Mike Pinder remembers the sessions' spirit of innovation: "Tony Clarke, Derek Varnals, and I were always trying to create new and innovative sounds. A good example of my signature Mellotron swoops are in Ray Thomas' song, "Legend of a Mind". I used the speed control on my 'Tron to create the swoops, and we would take advantage of the stereo effects to make the Mellotron sound and the movement come from one side to the other side, i.e., left-right, and right-left. And I would use the reverb to make it come forward and back in the track as well. The listener would get an almost-3D sound that was unique for that time."

"The Best Way to Travel" makes use of newly installed pan pots on Decca Studios' custom-built four-track recording console. The panning gives the illusion that the sound moves around the listener.

Release

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Music-News
Rolling Stone	(mixed)
Sputnikmusic	4/5

In Search of the Lost Chord was released on 26 July 1968. It peaked at number 5 in the UK Albums Chart and reached number 23 on the Billboard 200. Of the two singles from the album, "Ride My See-Saw" reached no. 42 in the UK Singles Chart and no. 61 on the US Billboard chart, while "Voices in the Sky" reached no. 27 in the UK but failed to chart in the US.

In Search of the Lost Chord was remastered into SACD in March 2006 and repackaged into a 2-CD Deluxe Edition. Although the other Moody Blues albums released in Deluxe Editions in 2006 featured their original quadrophonic mix (encoded as 5.1 surround sound), In Search of the Lost Chord had never been released in this format, and a new mix was not released until 2018 when a 5.1 mix was released as part of the 50th anniversary box set. In 2008, a remaster for single standard audio CD was issued with the nine bonus tracks.

In November 2018, the album was reissued as a five-disc In Search of the Lost Chord - 50th Anniversary Box Deluxe Edition set.

Promotion

To promote the album, the group continued to play concerts throughout the United Kingdom. In October, they embarked on their first American tour. Concert promoter Bill Graham invited them to play dates at both the Fillmore and the Fillmore East. Lodge remembers, "In '68 we were invited by Bill Graham to play two gigs in the States. The venues were quite far from each other and the gigs were 10 weeks apart so we worked our way across the U.S. and gigged with bands like Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane and Poco."

Legacy

In the Q and Mojo Classic Special Edition Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock, the album was placed at number 37 in its list of "40 Cosmic Rock Albums".

Track listing

Side One

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Lead vocals	Length
1.	"Departure"	Edge	Edge (narration)	0:44
2.	"Ride My See-Saw"	Lodge	Lodge, Thomas, Hayward, Pinder	3:38
3.	"Dr. Livingstone, I Presume"	Thomas	Thomas	2:58
4.	"House of Four Doors"	Lodge	Lodge	4:13
5.	"Legend of a Mind"	Thomas	Thomas	6:37
6.	"House of Four Doors (Part 2)"	Lodge	Lodge	1:42

Side Two

No.	Title	Writer(s)		Length
1.	"Voices in the Sky"	Hayward	Hayward	3:30
2.	"The Best Way to Travel"	Pinder	Pinder	3:12
3.	"Visions of Paradise"	Hayward, Thomas	Hayward	4:15
4.	"The Actor"	Hayward	Hayward	4:39
5.	"The Word"	Edge	Pinder (narration)	0:49
6.	"Om"	Pinder	Pinder, Thomas	5:47

Personnel

Musicians

• Mike Pinder – vocals, Mellotron, piano, harpsichord, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, cello, autoharp, tambura, spoken vocals
• Ray Thomas – vocals, C flute, alto flute, soprano saxophone, oboe, French horn, tambourine
• Justin Hayward – vocals, guitars, sitar, harpsichord, bass, percussion, Mellotron, piano
• John Lodge – vocals, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, cello, snare drum, tambourine
• Graeme Edge - vocals, drums, timpani, tambourine, piano, percussion, tabla, spoken vocal

Technical

• Tony Clarke – liner notes, production
• Derek Varnals – engineering
• Adrian Martins – assistant engineer
• Phil Travers – cover design, cover painting

Charts

Chart (1968)	Peak position
Canada Top Albums/CDs (RPM)	37
French Albums (SNEP)	6
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)	30
UK Albums (OCC)	5
US Billboard 200	23

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)	Platinum	100,000^
United Kingdom (BPI) release of 2018	Silver	60,000‡
United States (RIAA)	Gold	500,000^
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

External links

• In Search of the Lost Chord at Discogs (list of releases)