TO OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

The Moody Blue's 1969 effort, To Our Children's Children's Children, has always been one of the more overlooked works in their "Core 7" string of albums. I have absolutely no idea why that is, because this may very well be the group at its peak, and at their most progressive. The concept dealed with life on space, and the isolation faced by those on Earth who decided not to make the trip to space. There's much more to the story than just discussing man's first trip to space, contrary to what many people believe. Just like their other concept albums, things aren't exactly clear as water regarding the story, and that's what I like, especially with this album. Repeated listenings will reveal more and more things, even if this is far from the most complex music created. For me it's hard to describe in words some of the greatness potrayed on this album. "Higher and Higher" is great with its creative spoken word bits, and Justin Hayward's fine guitar playing. John Lodge's "Eyes of a Child Part 1" is a mystical gem which leads into Ray Thomas's playful "Floating" which in turn has one of the coolest and most spine-tingling segues into the rocking and fast-paced "Eyes of a Child Part 2". Great, great stuff. We then have a short acoustic number by Hayward titled "I never thought I'd live to be a Hundred". Graeme Edge's awesome instrumental, "Beyond", represents a fast trip through space. This song segues into one of Mike Pinder's masterpieces, "Out and In", which demonstrates some otherwordly mellotron. This song is beautiful. "Gyspy" may very well be the most straight-foward track on the album, and features some good strumming and excellent vocals by Hayward. Up next is another tune by Thomas called "Eternity Road". This song is somewhat unusual for Thomas mainly because it's more serious. The end of this song features a flury of flute, mellotron and percussion as it segues smoothly into one of Lodge's finest ballads ever, "Candle of Life". Following that is Mike Pinder's heavily Eastern influenced "Sun is Still Shining". We're nicely brought back to Hayward's "I never thought I'd live to be a Million" which then leads into this grand album's closer, "Watching and Waiting", which was co-wrote by Thomas and Hayward. This song features wonderful mellotron and vocals, and is a somber ending to an epic album in their catologue and an essential piece of Progressive rock.