Anyone who knows me well knows how much I loved The Moody Blues during my formative years. Still do.
Indeed, Nights In White Satin plays a crucial part in Finding Jimmy Moran.
To this day, I defy any man who has lived well to suggest a better song for any teen to slow dance to. Indeed, if, in high school, your first dance with a girl was to NIWS, you were probably going steady by the time the song ended. Dance twice with the same girl to that song, and you were picking out promise rings.
That being said, if I was going to choose a MB up-tempo song, it would have to be I’m Just A Singer In A Rock And Roll Band.
I mean, it is a song that will leave you breathless if you try to sing along, as one did in their youth, until one realized that they are not only color blind but tone deaf – with a wardrobe and voice to prove it.
But if there is a truly magical song in the MB pantheon, it has to be Tuesday Afternoon:
With all due respect to my incorrigible constant companion from my youth, Mark Lenahan, on a mystical, purely poetic level, IMHO, I believe it edges out Jethro Tull’s Songs From The Wood.
The music in TA is so big it carries you along into the magic of the woods. But, more than that, the lyrics are themselves an druidic incantation.
“Something calls to me
The trees are drawing me near
I’ve got to find out why
Those gentle voices I hear
Explain it all with a sigh”
https://genius.com/The-moody-blues-tuesday-afternoon-lyrics
According to the music critic, Richie Unterberger:
“The lyric, again like many of Hayward’s and the early Moody Blues’, is that of a youthful contemplative sort coming to a philosophical realization that helps him get that much closer to the meaning of life.”
https://www.allmusic.com/song/tuesday-afternoon-forever-afternoon-mt0012238275
I get a little closer to solving that life-long riddle every time I hear that song.
Interestingly enough, the song’s original title “Tuesday Afternoon,” was changed to “Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)” when the song was first released on the MB Album Days of Future Passed, but then returned to its original title when it was released as a single.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuesday_Afternoon
As my life transitions into evening mode, I kind of wish my afternoon would last forever.
Well, yesterday was Tuesday at the magical Casa Claire. The morning was spent in legal contemplation until a one day reprieve gave the lawyers some room to breath. Given that I was on my own – Lisa having selflessly engaged in another per diem day of post-retirement work – that brief adjournment allowed me to enjoy part of the late sunny afternoon observing the magic of the other creatures of Casa Claire. So I did.
Anyone who scans my FB page will see videos of me being summoned to the back door by Claire and Honey for their many daily snacks. I grumble and curse throughout the process, but I feel like a Sunday Italian grandmother when I see them enjoying their meals.
I also feed my two feral cats, Smokey and Mittens a/k/a/ Mike, multiple times a day and they also stopped by Tuesday Afternoon for a delicious gnosh.
While Blue snored soundly on the living room floor in her brand new day bed.
And of course, my murder of crows stopped by to snatch a few peanuts
While one of their crew kept watch on the Bunny Warren under the Workshop Bench.
If you look carefully you will see the large bunny on the left side of the under bench engaged in a dagger staring contest with Mr. Crow. You have not lived until you have heard a bunny curse.
So, you see, like the song tells us, there is a lot of magic in a Tuesday afternoon, if you know where to look for it. After all, Monday-Monday
is behind us and the weekend is one day closer.
My Tuesday evening was spent in a dentist chair, with two sets of hands pulling at my mouth like I was a member of the Mummenschanz troupe.
Interestingly enough, this was a lovely mother-daughter team, Jackie and Maria, a first for me, filling a decent sized cavity – while at the government’s behest inserting a GPS chip – in the farthest molar at the back of my now even larger mouth. Thank you ladies, always a pleasure.
Well, my fine, five readers, another Hump Day has arrived.
Let us have that second cuppa then get our skates on and attack that hill. Don’t forget to wave at the eternally inviting Friday from the peak.
But first I have a couple of kitties to cuddle and some rounds to make.
And while we are out there engaged in mid-week mischief, let us all remember to make today a great one.
5 Responses
My thanks to Jackie and Maria for getting that chip in place and leading you to believe it was only a GPS chip. (“Testing, testing, is this thing working? Flap your wings and test your flying instructions.”) And please forgive them if their work on your cavity seemed a little rough. Their dentist gig is only a side gig. They’re actually car mechanics by trade but always willing to jump in and take a crack at something when a call comes in where they can pick up some extra cash.
Loved your nostalgic walk through some great Moody Blues songs today too by the way.
In all fairness, they did get my engine running.
🤣
I believe it is about transcendental meditation and beyond.